Lent is a journey. This year let it be a treasure hunt. You are looking for the treasure of your whole self. You will be able to find this treasure if you are willing to look at all of your life with your inner eye. Your goal is to be able to see yourself as you really are and embrace what you see with love and understanding. This will require much reflective inner work with your memories. Your memories are your best friends. Walk with them during this season. There will be painful memories of feeling neglected, ridiculed, unloved, misunderstood, ignored, rejected. There will be memories of failure, sinfulness, ignorance, confusion. There will be happy memories of feeling alive, loved, safe and cared for, successful, excited, hopeful, noble and good. All of these memories are part of the story of your life.

Lent is a time for renewal and healing. Deep healing can take place in the human heart when we look upon the very things that have wounded us. We have a tendency to grumble about our woundedness and even to blame our present unhappiness on the wounds of the past.

Our Hebrew ancestors forgot about their many blessings of the past. Fiery serpents then came upon the people and bit them. When Moses interceded for the people, God told him to make a replica of a serpent and raise it on a pole. Anyone who was bitten was to look upon it and be healed (Numbers 21:6). This Lent you will be asked to do the same as your ancestors, for you too have been bitten and blessed. You are to raise a banner - a cross. It is your entire life. Each day you will be asked to look upon something that has bitten or blessed you.

Understand it with a new heart. Allow it to be integrated into your life. Then hang it on your banner - your cross. This is the cross you must embrace to experience healing - to discover Easter glory.