Like New Year's resolutions, Lent disciplines (giving up this or that thing) often start well. But after a while something happens to throw you off course -- it's someone's birthday, or your kids innocently bring you a treat, or you just flat out lose your determination and eat that chocolate/drink that wine. Your good intentions to read a chapter of your Lent book or carve out 15 minutes of silence go by the board, and you find yourself a week behind with no time to catch up.
What's the point of even trying, if you can't make it through the first week or two? Would it be better to give up giving up, and stop kidding yourself?
I think not, actually. And I also think that a broken Lent discipline is not such a big deal in the long run.
First, one of the central purposes of Lent is to remind us that we are utterly human, and utterly dependent upon God. What could be more human than breaking a promise, failing on a discipline, achieving less than we meant to, losing our confidence or our resolve? If we break the discipline we have chosen, it's just the moment to admit that this proves to us the very point of Lent. Rather than give up, this is the moment to give thanks for the reminder that we're only human - and then pick up where we left off.
Second, perhaps we should remind ourselves that it was actually *easier* back in medieval times to keep the disciplines. Not easy to do them, mind you, but easier not to break them.The whole community did the same thing, so everyone was immediately accountable. And all the meat and dairy food was eaten up on Shrove Tuesday, and there wasn't much left to choose from beyond stored (and probably slightly wrinkly) vegetables and carrots, and a few winter cabbages. There were no loaded supermarket shelves to tempt them, no displays of chocolate at every checkout, no off licence or liquor store on every corner.
We can help ourselves by keeping accountable within a group of friends, or our congregation. It helps, of course, if everyone in your house gives up the same things, or takes on a similar discipline of prayer or reading. But if that didn't happen, perhaps your beloved ones would be willing to indulge their sweet tooth out of your sight, or actively encourage you to claim that bit of space in your day.
But we can also remember that the purpose of Lenten disciplines is not to prove how stoic or determined we are - it's to draw us close to God. So if you have broken your discipline, forgive yourself, give thanks for the reminder that you are human and fallible, and start again.
Here's a cheery encouragement in that vein from Nat ("King") Cole: