A Lenten Reflection by Margaret Jacques-Leslie

Tuesday, March 10, 2026

Recently our youngest son and I visited the Touch and Feel Room at the Bell Museum, and there, laying on top of one of the snake cages, was a recently shed snakeskin. We wondered:

• How itchy did it feel for the snake when the skin came off?

• Did the snake know what was happening?

• How did the snake rub against a stick to get it to shed? At nighttime? During the day?

And the whole time, I wondered at the power of shedding and the real-life implications of it.

Lent calls us not just to reflect and repent, but also to pursue the opportunity to shed. To ask: What is God asking me to let go of? To truly let die?

I love that Lent is not a to-do list. That it’s not a habit management system. It’s that deep longing to shed, a God-given longing that lives in each of us. And, I love that the shedding can encompass something so literal as our dead skin cells (We lose them without even having to think about!) to our willful ignorance to injustice and everything in between.

May we shed like the snake - an itchy process, to be sure, and one that breathes new air on our skin and makes room for God to breathe alongside us.