I forget how much I love Ann Voskamp. And then I read her tweets or revisit her blog or add some gifts to my list and I remember. She is a beautiful and poetic writer and I absorb her words like a sponge. Her latest post about Lent is moving and I wanted to share it with you. Hope it speaks to you as it did to me.

Some of my favorite quotes:

“It’s the preparing the heart for Easter. Like going with Jesus into the wilderness for forty days, that we might come face to ugly face with our enemy. Our sacrificing that we might become more like Christ in His sacrifice.”

“Let the things of this world fall away so the soul can fall in love with God. God only comes to fill the empty places and kenosis is necessary – to empty the soul to know the filling of God.”

“Lent gives me this gift: the deeper I know the pit of my sin, the deeper I’ll drink from the draughts of joy.”

“Grief is what cultivates the soil for the seeds of joy.”

“She who knows her sins much, loves much, and the road to heaven is paved with the realization that I deserve hell. His rising will be all my joy, because I know it in the marrow of the bones: He is all my hope.”

* Read the whole blog post by Ann Voskamp: Why Doing Lent This Year is What You Really Need