Not blog-surfing is better for me than blog surfing.

That’s what I discovered during the season of Lent. Well, that and the fact that announcing my plan for a spiritual journey might have actually stunted the journey before the first step was even taken.

I had great hopes for Lent. I wanted to pair the denial-of-self notion with forward steps in my understanding of God and my knowledge of Scriptures. Now, on the other side of 40+ days, I can’t say I increased my knowledge. I pretty much marched in one spot during that spiritual journey. Like many of my aspirations, it started out with a bang and ended with a whimper.

As to the avoidance of blogs, news, and Facebook (FB deserves a category of its own, doesn’t it?), it was an interesting undertaking. I’m a blogger and an avid student of All Things Pop Culture, so I actually did feel denied during the Lenten season. By the first Sunday—my respite day as a reminder of the future celebration of Resurrection Sunday—I was absolutely craving the Internet. In that one day I had to work hard to not completely ignore my family as I made an attempt to eat up all the blog posts I had missed in the previous four days. But something changed as the days passed. I began to miss other blogs less and less. I don’t say that flippantly, as though I’m not part of a valuable community, but it’s true that I didn’t really miss what I wasn’t aware existed. (Very similar to our experience of disconnecting from cable TV actually.)

Still, the no-blog-surfing rule wasn’t easy. There were a small number of times I missed out on important joys or heartaches of friends, and I felt a bit left out by learning of events days later. By Wednesday every week I felt highly annoyed by the whole exercise, and then by Sunday, when I could finally feast!, I didn’t really want to. Lent brought up the concept of you-always-want-what-you-can’t-have and as a result I saw myself as fairly spoiled. I’m so used to getting what I want, at least in little ways, that it was a very strange thing to deny myself of anything! In post-Lent days, I’ve realized that it’s common for me to want what I don’t have. In truth, self-denial and long-suffering are two practices I’m not well-acquainted with. It was the moments where denial was hard, where clicking on that one link would’ve been so simple, where I was reminded to turn to God for the power to push through.

In general, I live my life on my own, sometimes forgetting that I am a child of God, the Creator of the universe, Alpha and Omega, you get the picture. I seem to ignore the amazement of Christ’s sacrifical death for my sins and plug on through my days on my own strength. I don’t need to live that way. The Bible is pretty clear that God gives grace and wisdom and strength to us when we need it. Giving up blog-surfing for Lent wasn’t the biggest challenge I’ve ever faced, but it was a worthy reminder that 1) I need God a whole lot more than I think I do, and 2) I am a wuss when it comes to giving up my creature comforts.

There was one huge side benefit to this year’s Lent observance: I felt free to be more creative. By turning off the voices of other bloggers, I found my own again. I felt free to write, free to take photos, free to share those thoughts and pictures with the world. I also read A LOT more.

So, while I don’t plan on giving up blog land quite so drastically as I did during Lent, I think I may limit my time online in a big way. I cringe at making a grand announcement here (“No more Internet from 8:00am to 8:00pm!”) but I wonder if I’ll actually enact a change without an announcement. Hm. It’s something to think about.