When I was a university student, an ice cream-loving friend of mine gave up ice cream for Lent. It became a joke among all of us as we watched him suffer through keeping his promise, and almost a party when we brought him three gallons of butter pecan just after midnight Easter morning! We often talk about Lent as a time of sacrifice. Of the sacrifice Christ made for us. And the sacrifices we should make. The idea of “sacrifice” isn’t a pretty one—it’s a painful one! But it implies temporary .