What can you give up this Lent — for them?

You need to know yourself in order to find the best ways to live Lent. Take some time to consider who you are and what your relationships need.

It’s important to know yourself well when you decide how you will fast, pray, and give alms this Lent.

If you do, then maybe you can combine all three in ways that are tailor-made to improve the most important relationships of your life.

Let’s start with your relationship with God.

We all have a different problem here. 

Maybe you are overwhelmed. Are you exhausted by your many devotions? Maybe you do rosaries, chaplets, and novenas  — and rosary novenas and chaplet novenas —  along with daily Mass, feast day activities, daily podcasts, and parish events, and you’re drowning in it all.

Or maybe you are presumptuous. Maybe you do all of those things and you actually keep up with it all. Your inbox provides the novena for next week’s feast each morning, you are on the second half of a 54-day rosary novena, you get a chaplet in most afternoons at around 3, and you are going through Bible in a Year for the third time. Maybe you are pretty sure that even God is impressed with you.

Or maybe your spiritual life is on hold. Maybe you did many of these things for much of your life, but you are just really, really busy right now. You totally plan to pray again — when you have more time. Maybe in late spring?

Whether you are overwhelmed, presumptuous, or on hold —  you can do something about it this Lent. Give up worrying about anything but daily prayer, Sunday Mass, and regular confession — but put more into each of those. At your daily prayer, picture Jesus sitting across from you, lean forward, and say, “Can we just talk for a change?” He would love to hear from you.

Then comes your relationship with your spouse.

Again, let’s be clear where we are starting. 

Are you walking on eggshells with your spouse? Maybe you’re fine, totally fine, as long as you can steer the conversation away from two or three or, well, maybe 10, touchy topics that set you off. If you talk about any of those you get angry fights or silent funks. So you don’t talk about those. And you’re fine.

Are you being maternalistic or paternalistic with your spouse? Maybe your husband complains that you don’t let him do anything he likes and that you shut down every plan he tries to make — but of course you do because his priorities are all wrong. Or maybe your wife complains that you don’t listen to her — but you most certainly do listen, on the rare occasions she actually has something important to say.

Or is your relationship nonexistent? Maybe all you ever talk about is logistics — because you have totally different interests and haven’t spent time together apart from the kids for years. 

Whether you are on eggshells, being superior, or avoiding each other … Give up your pride. Ask God for the courage to know where you are wrong and to be open minded about how your spouse is right. Ask your spouse to pray with you this Lent, and face your issues together (with a counselor would be good). And plan a regular time doing something you like so that you fall back in love.

Or maybe focus on your relationship with your children.

Again, decide which kind of parent you are.

Maybe you have an indulgent relationship with your kids. Maybe your relationship is too fun and casual. Maybe you can never draw a line. Maybe your kids are secretly stressed because there are no rules.

Or maybe you have a nagging relationship with your kids. Maybe you love their good qualities and they are really great kids, but their faults are so grating that they drive you nuts. So you end up only ever mentioning their faults. Loudly. Repeatedly. Angrily.

Maybe you are just too busy. Maybe you barely have time to finish what you need to do each day, let alone spend extra time with children who seem to be enjoying their lives well enough on their own.

Whatever your relationship with them, give up your pride about being the ideal parent in their eyes, or about their being the ideal children in your eyes. Instead, find ways to work together on projects: Ask them to do the dishes, then do it together instead of nagging about how it should be done. Fast from whatever is keeping you away from them, and pray with them daily, as a family.

Maybe this Lent can lead to more than just self-improvement in the end.