Last night Mr. Fantastic told me Ash Wednesday is this week. I resisted this news.
I obviously don’t have a real calendar, and my only knowledge of time is based on our family’s schedule.
Truly, it can’t be time for Lent. We haven’t even celebrated Valentine’s day yet.
Wasn’t I just making the first batch of fall pumpkin bread a few days ago?
I am pretty sure that I somehow missed Christmas, because that season flew by at the speed of light. I still wonder why we took the tree down so quickly.
I expect the grocery stores to push the next holiday obnoxiously early, but really, how can the calendar itself do this to me?
That self-important calendar scorns my resistance and Ash Wednesday is here despite my arguments.
Ever-growing in my heart is the root of my annoyance that Ash Wednesday has come so soon: I’m not ready to mourn, to face the forty days of Lent, to walk myself up to the cross and see it all play out again in my heart.
I just came up for air after the New Year. We are still adjusting to having two services on Sunday.
Now I feel the need to embrace Lent but I also feel a bit emptied of the energy to do it properly.
The finger of God’s definition points down into the haze of my emotions and I hear Him say it:
“There it is. You always think this stuff is about you. But it’s not. And, why don’t you ask Me what I have for you during Lent this year instead of freaking out?”
God has a way with words, doesn’t He?
Lent has come and I am holding a bucket of plans that don’t include this cock-eyed calendar, and maybe I need to bend a little lower during this Lenten season and drop the bucket at the cross.
That’s when I feel the flood of grace and the joy of ashes on Wednesday. There are forty days until we will celebrate the resurrection with our beautiful church family, and God will do amazing things during them.
I mentally catalog all the amazing things He has done in the last forty days.
Some of our friends nearly gave up on their marriage, but the crisis only revealed their deep need for Christ and their darkest moment came just before the dawn of grace.
Cherished friends walking through tragedy have risen in Christ as I could not have imagined possible. Daily I am in awe of their love and trust.
A growing church can mean a growing number of problems, but we seem instead to be seeing mostly a growing volume of miraculous faith and beautiful testimonies.
Mr. Fantastic and I had braced ourselves a bit for strain on our marriage this year, but deep wells of love keep flooding up into our days.
My children are growing up and not away, but in fact closer to the hearts of their parents. I never dreamed that blessing of reciprocal love would be mine so soon.
“Greatness” was the word He spoke to me for this year, and already I have encountered His awesome greatness more times than I can count this year.
It’s overwhelming to think of all He might do in the next forty days. I imagine the souls He will save, the marriages He will restore, the wrongs He will right, the hopes He will fulfill, the wounds He will heal, and the tears He will turn to joy.
His plans are glorious. Lent seems perfectly placed on the calendar now, and an early Easter is a gift.
Ashes on Wednesday remind me that I am small and God is big; that life patters along down His hallway of time; that He loves me and has good plans for me even when I freak out a little; and I remember that God loves His church with a passion that cannot be quenched and that we are blessed to be a part of it.
I’m walking straight on down the road to the cross, laughing with joy because I can see far enough ahead to know that this path leads to greatness.
Happy Ash Wednesday, friends. I will be praying that God’s greatness meets you during this beautiful season of Lent, and I grateful to tread the road of faith with you.
