Today is Ash Wednesday and Lent begins. I really love this time. It's hard and sad, so much of it/me feels broken and weighty but that's also what's so good about it. It reminds me of my need for a Savior, how mind-blowing the Cross really is. Lent also means that Spring/new life is just around the corner. (And you know how much I love Spring.)
This Lenten season finds me both with more anticipation and anxiety about the discipline I am taking on. The last few years of Lent I have been in utter survival mode with two young girls, in the dead of winter, barely holding onto my sanity. God, in His great mercy, never called me to give up caffeine or the television or chocolate...and, sad to say, I may not have even answered the call if I would have gotten it. This year is different. It's quite plain that I need to make more time, more space for God's voice in my life. I want to hear from Him and, now being in my mid-30's, I am realizing more and more how precious my time is. So...Justin and I are giving up television in the evenings after the girls go to bed. What will we do I have no idea...I guess read? Play games? Talk to each other? Crazy, I know! But I am anxious - my veg out time in the evening feels a bit like an addiction and I think it's going to be hard to give it up. But I am ready for this too. To be stretched and for things to be hard, for me to be uncomfortable. I am ready to sit in silence and listen. I want to hear things that are true and good. I want to be changed. And change doesn't come easy.
There is a great line in the Ash Wednesday liturgy that goes like this:
Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.
Repent and believe the Good News: God longs for you to be whole.
Out of this, I got a great Lenten gift in the middle of the night from the Holy Spirit (yes, you read that right). A reminder of a song. My song for Lent. A reminder that out of dust, the dust and death of my life and sin, things both seen and unseen, God is making something beautiful. I will believe it for myself and I will believe it for you. He makes beautiful things...that's just what He does.
So excited to see you writing on the ole blog again! :)
ReplyDeleteyou're back! woot!! missed you :D
ReplyDeleteI LOVE that song. And I love that part of the liturgy of Ash Wednesday. I wanted so desperately to be marked with ashes on Wednesday and couldn't figure out a way to get it done. I just wanted/needed to hear that I was dust and that God wanted me to be whole while someone etched the reality of it onto my forehead. That is such a powerful thing. I'm thankful that I got to read it here and that I paused to let it sink in. His desire to make me new makes me feel giddy against that backdrop of dust and death that we get to experience during Lent. You captured it perfectly.
ReplyDeleteYou have so much to say Amy. So many really really good things. Thanks for sharing some of them.
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