Walk Through Holy Week With Me: My Lenten Promise

My Lenten Promise has nothing to do with my dogwood tree, but I couldn’t resist posting that gorgeous picture of today’s bud! I’m having lots of fun every morning inspecting the tree for signs of blossoming.

For all you budding photography pros out there, I fully recommend taking pictures of plants and trees as a way to learn the settings of your camera.


And now…

MY LENTEN PROMISE

February 5 was the last day I let myself waste time doing senseless computer nonsense. Namely, this nonsense was in the form of a photography forum I visited quite often.

When I was first starting out, I needed that forum of professional photography colleagues to help me figure things out. It was a valuable business tool and worth the time I spent searching the forum for answers to the many questions I had.

But as my participation in the forum grew, and I developed friendships with people, I eventually came to realize that I was using “downtime” to sift the forum, entering into thread discussions that really had nothing to do with my business or my photography. In short, I was WASTING TIME!

Considering the fact that I work roughly 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, and still have a long list of tasks to accomplish, I CAN’T AFFORD TO WASTE TIME!

So I prayed about it, asking God to help me control my downtime. The answer came quickly: Ban yourself from the forum, child!

So I banned myself from the forum.

Starting at midnight at the beginning of Ash Wednesday through Easter, I promised myself I would not use downtime unwisely by going on the forum. That was my Lenten Sacrifice.

In my personal world view, though, Lent should not be a time of sacrifice solely for personal gain, but a time of sacrifice that ultimately betters the world or community around oneself.

At first, it was hard not checking out the forum because clicking over to the site had become a habit — something I would do when I just needed a “minute” to myself. Problem was, it was never just a minute!

The image above shows my computer screen and a sticky note I began as a diary of my addiction withdrawal. As you can see, I only wrote for the first three days. After that, I forgot all about it. While I do miss my forum friends, I can’t say that I miss the forum at all.

I’ve become so much more productive and focused during Lent, and I’ve found that I’ve been able to get so much more done! I completed several custom coffeetable book designs which my clients LOVE, scheduled extra shoots I didn’t think I’d have time for, designed birth announcements and thank you cards, revised my contracts, designed a new newsletter, and the list goes on and on!

But the accomplishment of which I’m most proud is the rehearsal tapes Web site I developed for my choir. Using rehearsal tapes provided by our director, I developed a system for uploading the music so that anyone can practice our anthems at home with the choir director singing each part — soprano, alto, tenor, bass — as a separate mp3 file! Members of the children’s choirs are enjoying it too because they can sing their church songs at home for their parents! It’s great for me because now I get to spend any “downtime” learning my alto part! The director loves it because she’ll be able to spend less rehearsal time teaching notes and rhythms and more time on precision and balance. I LOVE IT, and the feedback I’m getting from the choir members, from age 4 through 74 is that the rehearsal site is WAY COOL and SERIOUSLY HELPFUL! I can even download the songs to my iPod and sing on the train (inside my head, of course), and one of the choir members volunteered to burn CDs of the music for choir members who don’t have computers!

YAY!

My Lenten Promise turned out to be a grand success!

Plus, I’ve had more time to take fun pictures of the beautiful trees God gave us!

I don’t know about you, but I think that bud is dangerously close to popping!



Thank you, God, for giving me the Biblical example of Christ’s sacrifice, empowering me to thoughtfully examine my place in the world and what is expected of me, and to realize that Your gift of time on earth is not to be wasted.

Amen.

Coming tomorrow on my Walk: A Day of Reflections