Ashes

Forty days to prepare for the death of Christ, and to prepare for our own deaths. To purify our hearts of false gods and of fruitless hungers, to allow our hunger for Christ to grow and refocus our hearts on the God of the universe.

Last night when we received ashes on our foreheads and Amelia was marked with black (for the two minutes it lasted before she rubbed it off), I had to reckon with the words spoken by the priest in a new way... "Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return."

Somehow I'm able to glaze over the fact that I am dust and my life is passing, but... Amelia? It was a sobering thought, and made me rethink our mortality. I remember the time when Amelia didn't yet have life, I remember the first time I felt the movements of her life. I remember how she was born on April 17th and we held her in our arms. But I also remember May 20th, when Amelia Marie was baptized into the death and life of Christ and I handed her back to our Lord. I am so grateful for the gift of holding her for now and for being able to raise her, but I have to remember that some day she will die and return to dust, and I have to remember that I'm raising her to be prepared for that day.

I want to be holy for the sake of being united to Christ here on earth and spending eternity with Him in heaven, but also because I want that even more badly for my daughter (and my husband of course, but he I know that's already the goal of his life, too).

But desire doesn't cut it. Holiness, saintliness, Christ-likeness doesn't just happen. You have to choose it, you have to live it. You have to respond to the grace God is always trying to give you. And every Lent, we're invited to put an extra effort into our response. And so the Church asks us to draw back to the Lord with prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Setting our hearts and lives back to the rightful ends. God is already inviting us, calling us, reaching out a hand to help us, we just have to wake up each morning and take the steps with Him. How beautiful will it be to celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ this Easter if we die to ourselves this Lent and allow Christ to live in us more fully?

Let's pray for each other as we journey these forty days of Lent, and ultimately as we journey towards the day we return to ashes. Because, friends, family, Amelia (if you read this some day), I love you too much to not want heaven for you as well.