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Lenten Promise Update #4

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March 22, 2007 by Stephen

I am still on track with keeping my Lenten promise. The children, however, have had some problems. But this is a great learning time for them and for me. We use the times when we share about our promises to encourage one another. It also is a good time to remember God’s forgiveness and our ability to start over. It is refreshing to hear children talk about breaking their promises, but then trying again. Openness and honesty is so refreshing! As is the lack of being judgmental! I had what I will refer to as my ‘Josh moment’ last night. After discussing their promises and how they were doing at keeping them, we moved on to our discussion about prayer. But, one child stopped me and asked how I was doing with my Lenten promise. It was nice to feel like a part of their lives during this journey! I was happy to share what was going on with me! We had a good discussion about prayer, especially about prayer not just involving talking, but also requiring listening. We focused on the discipline of silence. We did an exercise where we focused our bodies and minds on achieving silence. After the exercise, we spent the remaining time at the reflection stations in silence, listening for God’s voice speaking to us. It was very interesting and very hard! Silence is a spiritual discipline I want to and need to spend more time exploring.
Reminder Prayer
When I pray I speak to God,
When I listen God speaks to me.
I am now in God’s presence.
God is very near to me.

From The Lion Book of Children’s Prayers, Lion Publishing.

3 thoughts on “Lenten Promise Update #4

  1. Josh says:

    yo Stephen,

    great post man! glad to hear that you’ve been able to keep up with your Lenten promises. It is such an awesome experience when the youth start to interact as on a two way street. that is so awesome that they are asking you how things are going. (and thanks for the shout out…)

    teaching students about silence…that is awesome. it has been both a struggle and joy for a lot of the students i’ve worked with. they have sort of a love/hate relationship with it. some love it, but still struggle with finding time and understanding it…and other hate it, but see a lot of beauty in it. they sort of balance each other out…

    let us know how practicing silence goes for you…

  2. Stephen says:

    Thanks for the encouragement Josh!

  3. Tom says:

    I’m enjoying reading your updates Stephen.

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