Six week Lenten series going through Trevor Hudson’s book “Pauses for Lent”. 

Video Message	Resources
Week 1: Choose	Monday Memo notes Choose Life This Week – Maybe you’d like to get familiar with this most formative, influential text in Deuteronomy, one that explains so much of what the rest of the O.T. is trying to communicate?: Deut 28-30 NRSVUE;MSG – Make a list of life-giving activities and attitudes in your life, and then also life-taking/draining ones. Which 1-2 would God like you to focus on for Lent 2026? – Want to explore more “life-giving” behaviors in the Wisdom Literature of the O.T.? Work your way through these selections from Proverbs and discover more ways to “choose life”: BibleGateway – Keyword Search: life – Take a deeper dive into the insight on this pivotal text from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks: Defining Reality | Re’eh and Why Judaism? | Nitzavim
Week 2: Ask	Monday Memo notes Asking this Week – This week, be asking God what you need to ask of whom. By week’s end, try to have gone out of our comfort zone and asked at least one person what you need.  – You can weave this short prayer adapted from Matthew 7.7 into your personal prayer this week: “Lord God, help me ask others so that I receive what I need, help me seek out others so that I find what I’m missing, and help me knock on closed doors so that they will be opened for me, amen.” – For what should you be asking others? The “one another” and “each other” statements of the New Testament are a good place to start. Here’s a fairly comprehensive list for your consideration: All the “One another” Bible verses in one infographic – Asking and receiving attention is at the heart of a good marriage (and good relationships in general). Here’s how the Gottman Institute describes that: bids-for-connection and KENT PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATES – Drawing from some psychological research, here’s a good acronym for a good ask made of someone else…Make a SMART ask: S = Specific (don’t just hint at it), M = Meaningful (to you, and you may need to explain why to the other person), A = Action-oriented (what are you asking the other person to do?), R = Realistic, and T = Timely (meaning, give a time frame for what you’re asking, don’t leave it open-ended).
Week 3: Telling Time	Monday Memo notes Exploring the Seasons of Your Life this Week 1. Spend some time with Eccl. 3.1-8 this week. Journal about which season(s) you might be in right now, or look back on your life and jot down the different seasons that you observe. Talk about it with a friend or in your small group. If you want to draw it, use the image of tree rings (from the sermon) – wide rings are during vibrant seasons, thin or narrow rings are for hard, dry seasons.  2. A prayer for the week, which we used yesterday at the end of the sermon: Adapted from Grace Church (Ealing, London, United Kingdom) O God, forgive me when I treat time as a commodity or an enemy, and when I abuse Your gift of time by rushing through it without thought or measure. In my fastness and slowness, help me to keep pace with You. Free me to live in Your time according to the season at hand. Give me eyes to see and a heart to discern the shape and texture of today, so that I might only ask it be what it is instead of wishing it were something else. Transform me into a person who see each season of life as a gift and a friend, and who live as if I have all the time in the world because I know that Your time will never cease, amen.  3. Some short pieces on the seasons of life:  Thriving in the Winter Season of the Soul – Miriam Dixon Lessons From the Trees – Nathan Foster The Deserts in Our Lives Allowing Life to Wax and Wane
Week 4: Listen	Monday Memo notes Listening Well this Week 1. Some questions to linger with this week:  – What patterns for listening and/or speaking did you learn in your family of origin? How have you changed over time? How not? – How have you experienced the lack of communication in our so-called Age of Communication?  – Go back to points 5 and 6 in the sermon summary. Who are those people in your life? Who could you ask to be? What “silenced voices” do you need to prioritize hearing right now? – Who in your life listens to you deeply and exploratively? To whom can you give that gift this week? 2. Learn more about deep and explorative listening:  – The Art of Listening – Deep Listening in Personal Relationships – The Art of Listening 3. What about this whole listening to God thing? How’s that work exactly? Note – the first link is to a seven minute introductory email, and the second resource below is a free download from our old friend, Trevor Hudson:  – How Do I Hear from God? – Learning to Hear God – Hearing God’s Voice: 12 Ways to Hear and Discern God’s Voice – Soul Shepherding – An Everyday Experiment in Hearing God – Richard J. Foster
Week 5: Weep	Tuesday Tidbits notes Ilia Delio (from her book Compassion): “We have the capacity to heal this earth of its divisions, its wars, its violence, and its hatred. This capacity is the love within us to suffer with another and to love the other without reward. Love that transcends ego is love that heals. When we lose ourselves for the sake of love, we shall find ourselves capable of real love.”
Week 6:	Monday Memo notes