Ash Wednesday

When I was a kid, we went to a Catholic church because my dad was a practicing Catholic. I used to give up sugar because the message that I got was that we needed to sacrifice something for God for 40 days,. Now that I’m not a Catholic anymore, I quit observing Lent. I thought it was just a thing that Catholics did.

I came across this invitation to join the Lent 2026 Global Blogging Collaboration.Since I was unsure of what to do, this became my jumping off point and I decided to join in the fun. It kind of snowballed really quick and now I can stop reading one post after another.

I especially like the post “The Devotional Guy” did on finding purpose in your suffering.

I pray to God every morning about my own struggles and ask Him to give me the strength to endure. So far, so good. I believe I am stronger because I’ve had to depend on myself mostly to exercise and manage my pain. The VA didn’t do anything much for me. Those who knows my story have heard it all before, but readers who may not know, I have a bad back. I’ll leave it at that.

Maybe the blessing in my suffering is realizing I am strong enough to endure. I will keep on doing what I’m doing until I get help, but if that help is surgery, I will need strength to get through that as well. It will come from God, through daily prayer, devotion, and studying His word, just like I have been doing.

I invite everyone reading to participate in this challenge, a little reflection and prayer never hurt anybody. Just use the hashtag #LENT2026 somewhere in your post and link to another collaborator.

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13