This Lent I thought that I would give up something meaningful, so I gave up tortilla chips. As a normal person, you may think that giving up tortilla chips is a crazy thing to do. Who gives up tortilla chips? Yes, I know that most normal people give up things like candy, chocolate, soda pop, T.V. or Facebook, but I’m not normal so I gave up tortilla chips because I was eating them all the time. I would eat them with my meals, I would eat them between meals, I would eat them in a house, I would eat them with a mouse, I would eat them here or there, I would eat them everywhere. And, I couldn’t figure out why I was never hungry. I just thought that I had a small stomach, but apparently I hadn’t realized how many tortilla chips I was eating.
The first week without tortilla chips was really hard. I stopped eating them, and all of a sudden I was always hungry. It was an unbearable hunger that I couldn’t figure out what to do about. What was I going to eat now that I wasn’t eating tortilla chips? It wasn’t until the second week of Lent that I realized that I probably should eat something else instead of continuing to obsess over how I couldn’t eat tortilla chips. I tried eating apples (yum), and carrots (yum!), and pears (yum! Yum!), and even grapefruit—I never thought that I would see the day that, instead of eating tortilla chips, I would be eating a grapefruit and like it. Last Sunday I decided to eat a few tortilla chips, since Sundays are not officially part of the 40 days of Lent, but the chips just didn’t taste as good as I remembered them tasting.
The first week without tortilla chips was really hard. I stopped eating them, and all of a sudden I was always hungry. It was an unbearable hunger that I couldn’t figure out what to do about. What was I going to eat now that I wasn’t eating tortilla chips? It wasn’t until the second week of Lent that I realized that I probably should eat something else instead of continuing to obsess over how I couldn’t eat tortilla chips. I tried eating apples (yum), and carrots (yum!), and pears (yum! Yum!), and even grapefruit—I never thought that I would see the day that, instead of eating tortilla chips, I would be eating a grapefruit and like it. Last Sunday I decided to eat a few tortilla chips, since Sundays are not officially part of the 40 days of Lent, but the chips just didn’t taste as good as I remembered them tasting.
Now it’s day 23 of Lent and I’m beginning to think that I wasn’t hard enough on myself. Maybe I should give up something else; on the other hand, getting over the obsession I was having with tortilla chips by fasting from them has given me more time to focus on the other aspects of Lent, such as prayer and almsgiving. For me, giving up tortilla chips has been actually good for the soul.
Now, how is Lent going for you?
Really Nicole, you made a wonderful sacrifice for Lent, and are reaping the rewards for it. When we sacrifice something important to us, it gives us an opportunity to discover how it's not as important to life as we've been making it out to be. Lent can help to free our senses and refocus our energy on other, more important things ... helping others, almsgiving, time for prayer. Lenten sacrifice is an opportunity to do something good with our lives and make healthy changes. You did just that! I applaud you!!
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