Free from anger (and bread).
Free to pray (and exercise).
"The women of the 
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The Christian season of Lent is historically a time of fasting and prayer — removing some things from our lives and taking on new, life-giving practices. On Wednesday, March 6th, the NCCIW Raleigh Unit Hope Center community gathered to celebrate Ash Wednesday in a special service. We each made commitments about what we wanted to give up —anxiety, sweets, unkind words. Perhaps more important, we made commitments about what we wanted to put in the place of those things — prayer, exercise, Scripture reading. and what we want to add in to our lives for the next 40 days.
As our chaplain, Sarah Jobe, prayed over the commitments of this incarcerated community, she realized that what we are doing in Lent has everything to do with becoming free women. Sarah shares, “The women of the Hope Center are choosing to live free from a set of practices, attitudes, and substances that have kept them bound, and they are being freed to fill that space with more life-giving practices, attitudes, and substances for the next 40 days.” Sarah created the two graphics above to be shared with the women as keepsakes of who the Hope Center community - both individually and collectively - will be during the 40 days of Lent this year. We are praying with these Wordles until Easter, and we invite you to join us in praying that we can keep our commitments to living free. What has kept you bound that you are free from? As a result, what are you free to do/be/have? We will be exploring this theme over the next three months and hope that you will engage with us in sharing some of the words on your lists. |