How Does a Snake Prepare for Growth and Change?

He sheds his skin!

And what does this have to do with Lent?  Perhaps like a snake, we can use Lent as an opportunity for growth and change. 

Two weeks ago, Rev. Donna helped CVC begin our Lenten journey by considering two fears that we might let go of for Lent. That day, we looked at our fear of being wrong, and our fear of being unsuccessful.  

I heard that if I was perfect, I wouldn’t need God, and that my imperfections are what lead me to God.  I heard that Grace happens no matter what; love is already at work when sin happens.  What did you hear?

On Sunday we will consider two more fears.  I hope you can join us.  Here are the readings for this week.

But I have stilled and quieted my soul like a weaned child. Like a weaned child on its mother’s lap, so is my soul within me. Psalm 131:2  (NB) 

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 

So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:25-34 (NIV)

Susan

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.

And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.

—from Patient Trust, by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ