Deadlines are Everything

The reason I tend to thrive during Lent hit me over the head today: deadlines!

I'm just under halfway to my BA in Journalism, and of course, deadlines our crucial to my field. Between two years of school and a summer internship at a local newspaper, I've become accustomed to having a time limit for things. You'd be amazed at what you can accomplish when you have fifteen minutes to fill a giant hole where a story should have gone. Why do you think I've been able to write 50,000 words in 30 days for the last three years? ;)

Lent is like that for me. With the stress of current schoolwork, my recent acceptance to university (Deo gratias!), and juggling various relationships, Easter tends to come like a bullet train. Though we should always be working toward greater sanctification, there's something about Lent that's supercharged. Perhaps it's the solemnity of the season, and the graces that come with more Confession or more frequent reception of the Eucharist. Maybe it's our conscious effort to do penance, to cleanse ourselves before 40 days of celebrating in Easter season.

Or maybe it's just the deadline.

Intense penance that goes for several weeks is plenty of time to truly kick a bad habit, or start a new routine (like my Daily Mass readings), but it's not so long that we start to buckle. The dedication comes for me in the knowledge that it the suffering won't last forever. It will eventually end, and when it does, I will hopefully have been transformed once more. I'm learning that in time, these little changes make all the difference. One step at a time!