Lent, Changes and Prayers

LENT:
I am sooooo excited about Lent. I LOVE lent! I love the focus of it and how disciplined I am during Lent. The rest of the year I challenge myself to pray more, eat better, give more, etc., but I always find myself giving into temptation or making excusing for doing what I know I need to do.  During Lent, it doesn't matter what I say I will do... I do it. No excuses, no lack of commitment. I just do it. I always feel such a spiritual renewal during this time. I am hoping that with a little faith and lots of prayers (thanks Prayer Buddy!) that I can have a successful, spiritual Lent and carry my actions through the rest of the year as well.  This is also Doug's first year doing any Lenten sacrifice.  He's not Catholic (yet! keep praying), but he is determined to offer it up this Lent as well.  I am glad we are in this together!

For Lent 2010 (thanks Always Giving Thanks for the format!) we will:

Give: Doug and I will be cleaning out our pantry and donating as much food as possible to our parish's food bank. We have also made a donation to CRS/Haiti Relief.

Fast: I am pretty much giving up every food item I crave, including going out to eat with my lunch bunch friends, all sweets and all fried food. This is my biggest challenge. I have major food issues. I am planning to pray when I am craving something and offer up the sacrifice to an intention of the day and my prayer buddy. I am also going to use my phone less in the car. I am addicted to my phone and it is NOT GOOD!

Pray: Doug and I will be doing a holy hour together and going to our adoration chapel weekly to pray. This is an area we struggle with as a couple. Our prayer life needs some help. We both pray and obviously attend Mass each week, but find it difficult to pray together. I'm not sure why... but we are determined to work on this. We are also going to be praying for my prayer buddy! I LOVE prayer buddies!!

CHANGES:
On Monday night we got some shocking news about Doug's health. I had long suspected that Doug had some underlying blood-su.gar issues. He's always thirsty and eats sugar likes it is going out of style. Yet, he remains very active and relatively fit. I set up a physical with my doctor for him... and I knew when the phone rang Monday night and it was my doctor, that it was not good. His blood-sug.ar was THROUGH THE ROOF!!! The doctor said to go to the pharmacy immediately and start him on meds. He was in the range that some people have strokes and slip into coma's. It was/is very scary. So meds have been started and we are TOTALLY changing the way we eat. My dad has diabe.tes and so I've been around it for years. I know the drill. But now, it's in my house and I hate it. I'm so scared for him and I can tell he is too. He has a huge family history of dia.betes -- multiple people in his family have it -- but NONE OF THEM do anything about it. They do not take their meds or alter their diet or anything. They basically ignore it, which drives me up the wall. Luckily, I married a real rule follower, so I hope that will help the situation. We were going to change our eating habits anyway... due to some fertility issues (a whole other blog post!), so this gives us both extra motivation. I've had diabete.s cookbooks for months now (thanks to my mother) and now I will put them to use. But if anyone has any great ideas, please let me know!

PRAYERS: Obviously, we are in in need of some prayers. Please pray his blood sugar levels go down quickly. They are still in the 'extreme danger' range! We go back to the doctor on Saturday and will learn more then. Both our nerves are shot and we are super stressed. I know that there is nothing we cannot handle, but if you have any prayers in you, we would greatly appreciate them!