Don't give up...give back

What have you given up for lent? Chocolate, Sweets? I've given up snacks (eating between meals) and now only eat breakfast, dinner, lunch and supper. Supper - there was a whole debate about that one in my house! Was supper a meal or not? Eventually my mum said that, seen as I wasn't eating snacks I could count supper as a meal. Oh gosh, its killing me. If anyone knows me then they will know I eat - a lot. So this is very very hard for me but i fully believe that god will help me through. I also thought that giving this up for lent was doing good until I read an article about giving up more serious things for lent.

A church minister from Scotland planned a 'Chocolate Sunday' where people could go along and enjoy chocolate fountains and treats to get them to think about the true meaning of lent. At the evening you could eat chocolate or all the other luxuries we give up 4 lent but the idea was to think about helping others - a worthy lent activity. He said, 'Many people use the discipline of these weeks to give up chocolate or fish suppers or the likes, but I prefer the idea of Lent being a time to give ourselves in service to others'. I found this an interesting and very relevant comment. Most of the time we give up small things for lent that don't affect us very much like chocolate and sweets. I believe the list below is the most popular items we give up for lent..

• Chocolate


• TV


• Crisps


• Sweets


• Chips


• Games Console

It all seems pretty silly to me now. I look at that list and see that everything we give up half the world aren't even priveleged to have. Who is giving up these things satisfying apart from ourselves? So what can I give up? Well I suppose the answer is not quite clear. We could give up something that could help the environment such as TV or our ipod. But we also give up something that we do which affects others such as backstabbing or swearing or being aggressive. Or, alternatively we could give up nothing at all but devote the whole period of lent to helping others; doing odd jobs for neighbours or maybe volunteering somewhere in you local area. I guess you could say it is bringing lent into the 21st century but then was lent already into the 21st century and we were just lagging behind? Anyhow I believe we should start a new tradition this lent, instead of giving up we should give back to our community.