Lenten Gratitude Challenge: Day 11

Today, I am grateful for the delicious wafting scent of a roast dinner at the front door. It was a long day at work and that comforting smell (and awesome dinner) was just what my weary self needed. 

Day eleven...

Lenten Gratitude Challenge: Day 12

Today, I am grateful for this pair of shoes. They are incredibly comfortable and I am so blessed to have such a luxury. I am also incredibly blessed to be able to carefully choose and select my footwear and experience the 'problem' of not being able to find the right shoe. 

Day twelve...

Second Sunday of Lent: Oh. Dear. Lord.

Well... Here I was thinking that last week was bad. Wagon was completely totalled this week. Life got hugely busy and heading down to the farm with no interwebs didn't help. I was still recording none-the-less! I had a full on weekend but it was spent in good company. So instead of celebrating the solemnity of St Patrick, I'm typing all these up.

Today then, I am so grateful for Sunday Mass. That weekly anchor, a reminder what the whole point of life is. 

Lenten Gratitude Challenge: Day 10

Today I am grateful for the beautiful post-storm sunset. It was just what I needed to put a disastrously late afternoon in perspective. It's not often I go over the Port Jackson Bridge, nor treated to such colours.

Day ten...

Lenten Gratitude Challenge: Day 9

Today, down at the farm I am grateful for my sweet and steady horse. He was good for me today even though I felt a bit pressured by time.

Day nine...

Lenten Gratitude Challenge: Day 8

Today I am grateful for that lovely silky smooth feeling the day after you get your legs waxed. Over sharing? Perhaps but you know... It is awesome. 

Day 8... Very, very late.

Lenten Gratitude Challenge: Day 7

Today I am grateful for the anticipation of someone special coming to visit. The excitement, attempt to fill time, the little butterflies. All of it is wonderful.

Day seven... Still haven't completely fallen off the bandwagon.

Lenten Gratitude Challenge: Day 6

Today, I am grateful for my walks home from work. For the time I get to think and imagine.

Day six...

Lenten Gratitude Challenge: Day 5

Today, I am grateful for raspberries, or sweet dew drops from the garden of paradise. Getting home hot and sweaty and then having these with a glass of ice cold water. It was a delicious moment.

Day 5...

First Sunday of Lent: CatholicFAIL

So I'm a little bit behind… but not too far only a day! Who'd a thunk that this would be so damn difficult. Aside from needing to go to bed earlier, I am really struggling to be attentive to things that I can be grateful for.

So often I'm finding myself struggling tiredly at the end of the day to record something that I am grateful for. It's more than just acknowledging it. It should be an offering of prayer to the one who gave it to me. 

So there you have it. First Sunday of Lent is a tale of Kiara and her fairly epic Catholic FAIL. Seriously. The only thing that is more difficult is giving up chocolate. Having said that, it's okay to fail. It's okay to stuff it, to do it imperfectly. If it is one thing that I learned during my discernment, it is that when you start feeling like crap and it's not working and you're about to throw in the towel, that is precisely the time when you are growing the most. Paradoxically, the times when we feel like God has abandoned us, are the times when he is closest to us.

So I persevere and I make my struggles an offering to him. I name the graces I need: attentiveness and fortitude. I open my heart to the Spirit to fill me with wonder and awe to find him.

So this Sunday, I am grateful for all my failings. I am also grateful for my mother who set the tone for Lent with an epic Catholic FAIL on Ash Wednesday.

Me: "Is that [shredded pork shoulder] for dinner?"

Mum: "Yep."

Me: "It's Ash Wednesday."

Mum: "Oh, S***! And I sent the kids to school with ham sandwiches!"

Yep, should have ashed our selves with FAIL in reparation for that dozy. I also managed to serve myself leftover lamb in an omelette on friday… oops!

1st Sunday...

Lenten Gratitude Challenge: Day 4

So, I've been out enjoying life a little too much so this post is late… again. I'm not giving up just yet.


Today, I am grateful for this awesome resource from Christopher West. TOB has been a huge part of my journey back home to Catholicism and Christopher was my first introduction to this mind-blowing theology.

Day 4...

Lenten Gratitude Challenge: Day 3

Whoops... This is late, but I'm not giving up yet!

To(Yester)day I am(was) grateful for the awesome friendship I share with Box. He totally made my day with inappropriate humor and his experience of a hazelnut hot chocolate...

Day 3....

Lenten Gratitude Challenge: Day 2

Today, I am grateful for my glasses. Who would have thought that a right shaped piece of glass would restore poor eyesight and be stylish at the same time?

Day two...

Lenten Gratitude Challenge: Day 1

Today I am grateful for the storm today. I got soaked, but it was cleansing, cooling and a mighty show of lightning.

Though it came and went, it was beautiful, awe-inspiring. It came, it soaked, it conquered. 

Day one...