Giving up strength for Lent

Ok, this was not my initial thought on what to give up for Lent this year. Last year, I gave up obsessing over clothes that I wanted to buy. This year, since I'm eight months pregnant with a bowling ball sticking out of my abdomen, it's frankly not that fun thinking about my appearance.

Instead, I was making an attempt to give up going to bed so ridiculously late every night.

And then last Tuesday happened. Last Tuesday was the day that my body declared to me that it was indeed 32 weeks pregnant. It gave me notice that it will no longer do the things I've been asking it to do, and declared a strike for an undetermined amount of time, during which if I so much as load or unload the dishwasher, it will unleash an obnoxious protest on me in the form of lower back pain, burning and aching muscles, and the threat of heavy waves of false (fingers crossed) labor pain.

It's been a week now since my body called it quits. And I've decided to think again about Lent. I'm not thinking any more about when I go to bed, because my body now hits a point at which it will no longer tolerate being upright and demands sleep. So. Instead: I have decided that this year for Lent I will give up the illusion of my own strength.

It is an illusion maintained for myself as much as for anyone around me. I have always liked to seem, or indeed actually to be, as self-sufficient as possible. I like to make a plan to do something, and then maybe throw a few more items into the mix, just so that at the end of this stressfully great juggling act I can give myself a little pat on the shoulder, and maybe get the sense that people around me are wondering how just how I managed that without dropping a single ball.

Obviously, having kids can just knock the juggler right out of you. Or, if you are someone really committed to seeming strong and capable, they simply provide more of a challenge to prove yourself. It's just an upping of the ante.

Christians, or at least I can speak to American Christians, make this into a kind of a virtue. For years I used to remind myself, and hear others repeating around me, like a mantra: "I can do all things through him who gives me strength." Amen, pray more, and move forward throwing yourself at the million tasks and demands in front of you.

I don't disagree at all with the idea of asking God to provide strength for the day when I lack it. And yet here I am, with minimal strength and increasing pain, and what I want to think is: Ok. Pray. And then get back to the juggling.

But the problem with all this throwing around of Philippians 4:13 is that our English Bibles create a paragraph break between two verses that are clearly tied together. It's something I never noticed until recently. Paul writes: "I can do all things through him who gives me strength. Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles." He's trusting in Christ's sufficiency, but he recognizes his need for other people.

It can be difficult to do, but it is good for me to let myself be weak. And, even harder: it's good for me to allow people to see me be weak.

My weakness opens up the possibility that I could receive the care of other people. It can strengthen and deepen relationships. It allows other people the opportunity to give; it possibly requires some self-sacrifice of them. It requires me to push pride out of the way of accepting that someone else sacrificed something for me. I really hate asking anyone to do anything for me. I hate the possibility that I have irritated someone, inconvenienced them. And yet, in theory, I do think it's good to get inconvenienced. To have the opportunity to give something that actually cost something.

So, since I will be spending Lent in one of the final months of my pregnancy, I am going to spend Lent openly declaring: I am not strong. My self-sufficiency was a lie, even before my body dumped me. For this season at least, my juggling is at an end. I will not be amazing anyone with any feats. If you stop by my house, it will even more of a mess than normal. If you come over to eat, I will buy something from the store and hand it to you. But I will certainly be glad to see you.

There could be something really special about a month of the year spent in transparency with one another. Refusing to cover up the holes in our lives or to deny the needs. And when we help others, not doing it in a way that makes us look stronger or more capable. But instead just getting together, as people who acknowledge what we lack, and who are willing to help each other in the ways that we are able.