When I forfeited the full use of my dominant hand for Lent, I really had no idea what on God’s green earth I was doing.

All I knew was that I craved to more seriously contemplate the sacrifice Jesus made for me in these six weeks leading up to Easter, and as I prayed about how I could do that in a meaningful way that would actually IMPACT my daily life this Lenten season, what God put on my heart to relinquish was something one of my selfless superheroes goes without EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

The full use of my right hand.

So, with the permission and blessing of our superhero who so beautifully does with four fingers and one bone what takes me five and two, I asked the boy we have always called Superman to restrain my right hand with a wrap so that I could spend the next six weeks viewing the world through his hands and his eyes.

I didn’t make a bunch of rules for this experience, mostly because this Type A first-born control freak really, really likes rules and regulations and boundaries and instructions, and, if I’m just being honest, I too quickly take what God would use to foster relationship and instead transform it into some kind of rulesy, rigid “religion.”

But the one rule I did make for myself was that I was not going to allow my newly restrained hand to keep me from anything I would normally do on an everyday basis.

If Superman and Superhero 4 could face these same things the world calls “handicaps” and prove them time and time again to be handy-capabilities — if they could seek solutions and not excuses and live as victors and victims — I had to at least try.

Now one week into this journey, I just didn’t realize how privileged I really was.

I haven’t always fasted something for Lent.

Though I have known and loved Jesus since the age of 13, I grew up in a church community where neither subtracting nor adding things to my life for this season was an emphasized “thing.”

So although there have been years in my adulthood where I fasted chocolate or sweets or social media or television in order to grow closer to the character of Christ in those days leading up to Easter, I never consistently participated in a yearly Lenten fast that would require me to forego anything for 46 days of my life.

(Full Confession 1 — until yesterday, I didn’t realize Sundays didn’t count in the fast and Lent was actually 46, not 40, straight days , so I should clearly not be trusted in any and all things Lent.

Full Confession Number 2 — in our active duty military lives, my sweet soldier was gone nearly more Lenten seasons than he was home, so most of the time, I pretty much just pretended like I was fasting a husband for Lent and called that good enough. Note to military families: If you want to make this sound more holy, you can simply tell your friends you are fasting sexual intimacy, fasting secondary adult assistance or fasting good old-fashioned sanity. Any of the above are applicable when your soldier is overseas in this season.)