What gives?

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Christ's 40 days and nights in prayer and fast. Being a Catholic, I not only grew up participating in a lenten sacrifice (give up something from Ash Wednesday to Easter), but I also take it seriously. I like a challenge, so I usually give up something that I am fairly addicted to and have/use everyday. For the past 5-6 years, I have given up sweets. Not just chocolate, all sweets. It's tough considering I'm the girl that has an Dark Almond Dove chocolate after lunch and dinner every day. What can I say? I have a serious sweet tooth.

This year though, I feel a new sense of importance and calling during Lent. While I could give up sweets again, I feel that I am wimpping out. I feel like I have fallen into such a pattern of giving up sweets that I've lost the understanding and significance of Lent. So, if not sweets, what should I give up to show my belief and faith in Christ? To this answer, I keep coming up short. I don't have an answer. I've run coffee (might be impossible for a college kid) and Facebook (I use it for group projects for my classes) through my head and have decided that those are "impossible." But yet, is there anything that is impossible if I put my faith in Christ? There isn't. All things are possible through him. So why can't I give up these earthly things? It frustrates me to no end that I don't have the will to stop drinking coffee or to give up Facebook.

I have given up other things. Yes, "things" is plural. I felt like if I gave up multiple things that I still have/do every day that maybe it would amount to the sacrifice I would be making if I gave up Facebook or coffee. Yet, I feel like with a list of things that I can't do, I have to think through every action that I make. This isn't a bad thing, but if I have to think so hard about if I'm breaking a lenten sacrifice, have I again lost the true meaning of Lent? It's an internal struggle that I have been dealing with over the past few days. What do I give up to show my dedication to Jesus? He sacrificed his life for me, how do I reciprocate that? I know that I am human and that God made me in his image. I know that the reason that Jesus is the Son of God is because he could lay down his life for me and make the biggest sacrifice of all.

I'm making my little dilemma seem so important and life-changing, and it's not. It's just that I don't know how to praise the Man that made me who I am, that has my entire life planned, and that has my back every minute of every day. And to me, that's huge.