Good morning…
As my husband was brushing his teeth yesterday morning, I walked into the bathroom and said, “Happy Ash Wednesday!”
“I’m not sure those words really go together,” he said. “Happy.” “And Ash Wednesday.”
So I deepened my voice and dragged down my candescence, “Dreary and dreaded Ash Wednesday to you.”
Later in the day, as our staff experienced together a moving Ash Wednesday service, I walked forward for the Imposition of Ashes. “From dust you have come,” the pastor recited Genesis 3:19, stroking a smudge of black ashes down the center of my forehead. “And to dust you will return,” she swiped ashes across to finish the sign of a black cross beneath my lifted bangs, leaving a mark to signify our mortal nature.
As I prayerfully knelt at the altar rail before returning to the pew, one line from the deep voice of the singer resonated richly within me: “Earth has no sorrow that heaven can’t heal.” I thought to myself, “From God’s perspective, maybe happy and Ash Wednesday do belong together.”
Your body came from the earth. And when you die, it will return to the earth. But your spirit came from God, and when you die, it will return to him (Ecclesiastes 12:7, ERV). This promise from God’s Word makes me weirdly happy.
…Sue…
