Ashes

Today is Ash Wednesday.  I remember once accompanying a college friend to her Catholic church to feel the warm finger of the priest smear a cross of ash on my forehead.  It's not something we do in my church tradition, but each Ash Wednesday, my mind always travels back that small act of identification with Christ.  

There is power in symbolism.  Today I plan to have the kids write a letter of confession to God.  Then we will burn them to ash and cross our foreheads.  I want to take them on a journey to the cross, honoring God in the Lenten tradition of sacrificing, fasting, and giving to the poor.  I too rarely pause in my activity to do more than a quick devotion and prayer.  Sometimes not even that much.  But I have 40 days until Easter to pause, reflect, fail, and recognize my need for a Savior.  And then there are all those days after Easter....

In Joel, the people are called to "rend your hearts."  To rend is to rip in pieces.  I don' think this can happen in haste, in the funnel cloud of my life.  This happens only when I step into His presence and face the cross in all its severe glory and grace, to feel the tear, to feel the healing.  To know the truth that sets me free.