Chocolate Chip Cookies are great after 40 days!

Easter has come and gone and so has Lent. Now mind you I've never partaken in Lent before in my life. It's never been part of my spirituality and I never really knew anyone who went through it when I was growing up. I did some research on it this year and decided it was actually a really wonderful thing to do as a Christian. It doesn't matter what faith you are or denomination your church is...if you believe in God and believe that Jesus died for our sins then you should give Lent a try. You basically give up one thing that you love for 40 days during the time before Easter. Our family declared Lent over at 12:01AM Easter morning.

I went first. I decided to give up all sugar. Now that's a challenge! I love sugar! I told my 13 year old daughter all about Lent and how Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. The other thing I emphasized was that Jesus died a horrible torturous death for us...for our sins. He did that for us because He loved us and did that for us so that our sins were paid for. The least we could do for Him would be to give up something for 40 days. She agreed wholeheartedly and gave up all sugar with me.

Fast forward a week to when my step-daughter (10) came to the house. We told her about what we were doing and she also declared she wanted to join us! What a great family I have!

Ok so the first week was pretty hard and we decided that all sugar was going to be near impossible. So we allowed sugar in our coffee (because we absolutely do not use artificial sweeteners in our house because of how horrendously bad they are for us). We allowed natural sugars in our food as well. We changed it to no desserts, sweets, treats or any of that.

The kids did amazing! They were steadfast! My step daughter was faced with a few obstacles along the way though. Her mom (my husband's ex-wife) really loathes me. Really for no other reason than the fact that I dared marry her ex-husband and step into her daughter's life. She's vile but I'll save that for another post. Basically she has to control everything her daughter says and does. She goes berserk if I initiate something her daughter does. So because Lent was my idea this year and because my step daughter joined me in that challenge and because her mom didn't come up with the idea...well then the whole thing was just a horrible idea.

Her mom is the type of person who will dangle cookies and brownies and chocolates in her face and taunt her saying "Well if you weren't doing this stupid challenge you could have some of these...mmm they sure are good...don't they look good?" She's evil...pure and simple. What mother does that to her own child? Well this woman does. That's just the tip of the iceberg. So my step daughter would come to our house on the weekends so frustrated and so upset thinking she was going to upset Jesus for having a sweet or a treat at her mom's house. She would allow herself to be bullied into it. *vent on: BY HER OWN MOTHER! vent off*

What I explained was that Lent is symbolic. It's supposed to symbolize your faith as a Christian. That you will be faced with sin and tempation every single day of your life and that you have to hold onto your faith with all your heart and all your might and fight those battles and stay true to who you are. She did just that! I love that girl! She went to her mother and explained that to her and finally...finally her mom backed down. Her mom even went as far as to suggest she try it again next year! But see that sounds good right? Well the hidden motive is that next year it will be HER idea. As in her mother will control it. Whatever. Seriously...I don't care if satan himself asked her to do it as long as she does it. I'm so proud of her.

Ok so back to the post. Sorry to go on and on like this. I just wanted you to read the whole story so you could fully understand how it all went down.

Fast forward to Easter morning. 8am I was up baking chocolate chip cookies. These are my daughter's favorite treat in the entire world. They were salivating at the sight of the cookie dough. Needless to say no one had a healthy breakfast that morning. Even our toddlers got in on the cookie action.

We went to church and it was unbelievable. It was the BEST service I've ever attended in my life. The message was clear and powerful. We laughed, we cried, we sang, we worshipped! I witnessed nearly 200 people giving their lives to God that morning. It was amazing. Truly!

After church we went to the inlaws and had a wonderful ham feast. The kids had an egg hunt and we played games. What a wonderful day.

My kids gorged on as much chocolate and as many desserts as they could devour that day.

40 days without chocolate chip cookies? That was hard. And they were the definition of BLISS that day.