{"id":4617,"date":"2018-02-12T16:03:27","date_gmt":"2018-02-12T16:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kelolandblogs.com\/lundatlarge\/?p=4617"},"modified":"2023-07-20T21:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-07-20T21:00:00","slug":"the-miracle-of-lent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/the-miracle-of-lent\/","title":{"rendered":"The Miracle of Lent"},"content":{"rendered":"

What are you giving up\u00a0for Lent?
\nWe Christians love to ask that question and compare the degrees of personal sacrifice and hardship we are willing to endure for a few weeks late winter..early Spring.
\nChristian #1 \u201cI\u2019ve gone without chocolate for a month, thought I\u2019d never get through it.\u201d
\nChristian #2 \u201cWell, I haven\u2019t had the TV on since Fat Tuesday and missed out on the best parts of the Olympics and “Survivor.”\u00a0 Who was kicked off?\u00a0 No don\u2019t tell me until Easter Sunday.\u201d
\nI guess the main reason people give up pleasurable things during lent is to serve as a reminder of Christ\u2019s suffering.
\nI usually don\u2019t take part in the giving-up thing because I\u2019m always reminded of His suffering this time of year from an episode in my youth.\"lent<\/a>
\nDuring the week of Ash Wednesday, every kid in Sunday School class at First Lutheran Church in Volga would be issued a container about the size of a pop can. It had a slot in the top and was wrapped in holy purple construction paper with our names written on it.
\nIt was our responsibility to fill those cans with coins during Lent. The money would then be donated to the poor or to foreign missions or something.\u00a0We were to bring those Lenten Coin Containers back to church with us on Easter Sunday. Then each class would march up front to deposit them on the altar demonstrating the financial sacrifice we had made for our risen Lord.
\nBoth my two brothers and I always had good intentions of putting every spare piece of change we had into those cans but would wind up\u00a0blowing it on candy, the pin-ball machine at City Cafe or the must-have spring edition of baseball cards that just arrived at Westaby\u2019s Clover Farm store.
\nBefore long it was the Saturday night before Easter morning and we\u2019d only managed to drop a few measly pennies in those cans over the last 40 days and now faced the embarrassment of having the whole congregation discover what sinful, lazy cheapskates those\u00a0Lund boys were.
\nAnd that\u2019s when God worked His\u00a0miracle!
\nAs we reached for our mostly empty Lenten Coin Containers and prepared to face the scorn of the masses at church, we were shocked to find the cans were suddenly heavy..filled nearly to the brim with pennies, nickels, dimes and a few quarters.
\nA guardian angel had come in the night to save us!
\nI think of that wonderful angel a lot.\u00a0She was not only there for me at Easter but anytime I needed someone to bail me out of trouble with no questions asked.
\nI sure miss you mom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What are you giving up\u00a0for Lent? We Christians love to ask that question and compare the degrees of personal sacrifice and hardship we are willing to endure for a few weeks late winter..early Spring. Christian #1 \u201cI\u2019ve gone without chocolate for a month, thought I\u2019d never get through it.\u201d Christian #2 \u201cWell, I haven\u2019t had…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4617"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4617"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11501,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4617\/revisions\/11501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}