A wonderful friend recently shared a piece with me that struck a chord, perfectly capturing a shift in how I’ve been thinking about Lent—specifically the nature of sacrifice.
For many of us, the traditional “giving up” of something like chocolate or alcohol feels like the standard Lenten protocol. I truly admire those who hold fast to their fast; there is a unique discipline in that denial. However, I’ve always been a proponent of doing something positive—adding a prayer practice or a service project—partly because, if I’m honest, I enjoy my oatmeal raisin cookies far too much to part with them. But the reflection my friend sent suggested a third path: Lent as a season of “letting go.”
We are now past the halfway point of the Lenten season. This isn’t a suggestion to “change horses in mid-stream,” but rather an invitation to look deeper at the baggage we carry. While we often focus on the worldly attachments that distract us, there is a more subtle category of weight: the internal “unfinished business” that blocks our path toward God.
Think of the things we cling to that no longer serve our spirit. We hold onto broken dreams as if they were still viable, or we let past failures define our current worth. These aren’t just memories; they are anchors that slow down or entirely block the journey God has designed for us.
Sacrifice is often framed as a loss, but “letting go” is actually an act of liberation. It requires us to look inward and ask: Am I holding onto something that should have been dropped long ago? Am I clinging to a “what might have been” so tightly that I cannot see “what is” or “what could be”? Whether it is a long-held resentment, a self-defeating habit, or a narrative of “not enough,” these are the things that keep our hands too full to receive grace.
Lent is a season of sacrifice, study, and service. Those are the pillars. But the goal of those pillars is to prepare a room. If the room of our heart is cluttered with the debris of the past, there is little space for the new life of Easter to take hold.
To “let go” is to trust that God has something better for us. It is the realization that we cannot embrace the hope of the future if our hands are still clenched around the failures of yesterday.
As we move toward the Cross, perhaps the greatest sacrifice we can offer isn’t a cookie or a glass of wine, but the simple, courageous act of opening our hands and finally letting it go.
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