A Season of Expectation

I'm always a little leery of writing stuff like this. I don't even know why, the words just stop somewhere around my fingertips and refuse to budge.

After our dog Max died, I decided that I needed a new dog, and already knew what I wanted.
He was to be a black, floppy eared schnauzer that I was going to name Duncan.
Now, if you've seen Mikenna, you'll know that she is the polar opposite of that, but I wouldn't trade her for the world.
Sometimes, what we end up with is drastically different than our expectations, but it doesn't make it any worse off.

Our church's "big event" begins tonight. Where catholics observe lent, our church observes the time between passover and pentecost. It's supposed to be a time of waiting, of expectation, where we pray and fast. Pentecost Sunday is the pastor's last Sunday with the congregation before his family moves to Arizona. They expect to see big things happen in the next few weeks. The baptist in me winces a little, and I am torn.

On the one hand, the idea of giving something up for a defined period of time as an act of sacrifice makes sense. I'm always slightly intrigued by lent, but for things like this, I'm never really sure what to give up. There are some things, like the internet, that I really can't give up, because I need to access things for my pampered chef stuff. I could give up games, but for me, I don't really think that's a big sacrifice. Since I'm taking a cake decorating class next month, giving up baked goods is out, as probably is chocolate. I'm really only left with caffeine, though I feel a tinge of guilt, because I'm (half heartedly) trying to give it up for my health *anyway*, and I feel like mingling religion and dietary things is a little selfish.

Then there is, even if I participate, am I really going to see anything extraordinary happen within the church/myself? This is the part of me that is super torn, because I don't consider myself pentecostal in the least, but obviously praying and fasting is biblical. I just dance around "is praying and fasting, but with expectation, a good thing?" because it very well could be, but then, I can see God rolling His eyes at it, too. Then again, at least the church is smart enough not to "expect" something like a million dollars just to fall into their lap.

This is a season of change, I don't doubt that. On the most broad level, it's spring, which brings new life and change. (Unless, of course, you happen to be Michigan, in which case, it snows and is cold regardless) There are things that I'm waiting on, to see how they turn out, things that could potentially change everything. (No, I'm not referring to pregnancy) There are things that I'm working on, waiting on, knowing that I could be working harder. Things I'm learning, discovering, failing and succeeding at.

There is something in the air...I'm excited to see if anything will be different in the next 7 weeks.