I grew up in St Louis County, Missouri. As religious affiliation went, I was in the minority. My parents were quite paranoid that I would choose to marry a Catholic boy. In fact, in college I did date someone who was Catholic. I thought my parents would stroke out. In a short time, we broke up. Not long after that I met a nice Baptist man and married him, almost 47 years ago.

All this to say, Lent was always a mystery to me. Some of the Baptist churches we attended over the years incorporated Advent into the Christmas celebration (my dad would have a heart attack over that!). Lent, however, did not come into my churches.

Lent was the day my classmates came to school with ashes on their foreheads. All the fraternal organizations threw Friday Fish Frys. The school cafeteria had meatless meals on Fridays. Asking my parents was terrifying, so I chose to become clueless.

As I grew up, I understood that Mardi Gras was part of the Lent tradition. Partying like there was no tomorrow was incongruous to me with the ashes the next day. This tradition stumped me. [Confession was the same thing, a mystery to me, but that’s another article.]

As an adult, I came to realize that Lent was a fast prior to Easter. People fasted from specific things to remind them of the gift of eternal life Christ gave on the cross. This tradition seemed biblical and appropriate. But what people fasted from seemed frivolous to me: chocolate, swearing, smoking, certain foods, and certain activities.

When my son Dan and his family moved to Beaumont, TX, they began participating in some Mardi Gras traditions, particularly purchasing King Cake. [If you’ve never had the cream cheese stuffed King Cake, you have to try it.] Beaumont is very close to the Louisiana state line, and New Orleans is the place to be in the US for Mardi Gras. These celebrations occurred in Beaumont as well.

Also Dan is a hospital chaplain. In Beaumont, he ministered in a Catholic hospital. Part of his duties there was to administer ashes on the day after Mardi Gras to those who wanted them. It mystified me why it was okay for the Baptist chaplain to participate in this wholly (holy) Catholic tradition. So, I asked him about it. He told me that the ashes used are the burnt palm fronds from last year’s Palm Sunday. Knowing that gave me a historical view of Lent I’d not understood.

I recently participated in a women’s Bible study, Encountering God by Kelly Minter. The study focused on spiritual disciplines. One day was devoted to the practice of fasting to encounter God better. I’d also studied some about fasting in a study called PrayerLife.

Mind you, Baptists have been called Church of the Covered Dish. Fasting is just not the way we come together as a church!

All of this to say, preparing our hearts and souls for celebrating Easter is the point of Lent. Some of the practices connected to Lent are like Christmas traditions, different from family to family, church to church. And that’s okay.

The point is to focus on the gift of Christ and our response to it. What about you? How do you prepare to celebrate Christ’s sacrifice for our salvation?

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world,[a]that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. [The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.]