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Ashes To Ashes

By Katrina Fuller

kfuller@post-journal.com

“Every day I wrestle with the voices

That keep telling me I’m not right,

But that’s all right.

‘Cause I hear a voice and He calls me redeemed

When others say I’ll never be enough.

And greater is the One living inside of me

Than he who is living in the world.”

≤ “Greater” by Mercy Me

Sometimes, I get so caught up in the storm that I don’t look up at the clouds.

I find myself in the midst of a tempest, tossed to and fro that I can’t bring myself to see the only way out is up. The waves keep crashing in, the waters rise higher and I feel lost.

I seem to forget that the Lord can see me no matter what mess I’m in, no matter how choppy the waters may become.

On Ash Wednesday, I felt this way.

I felt harried, hurried, worried and more. I felt tired, overrun and completely out of sorts. Yet, as we all know, we have to keep on keeping on — pulling one’s self up by one’s boot straps and all, so I went on to my first story of the day. I watched as the pastor lovingly dealt out the ashes from the burnt palm fronds from last year’s palm Sunday, tracing the cross on the forehead of a seemingly peaceful woman. It looked in that moment as if the waves of her life were quiet. It seemed as if she was breathing in that time of prayer and solemn reflection as we began Lent in a rainy parking lot.

A pang of wanting grew up in my chest. I wanted that peace, too.

The peace of prayer. The peace of grace.

I was so caught up in looking at what was around me and “keeping on” that I forgot about what was inside of me. That I have been resurrected with Christ; that I have been washed clean and that the Holy Spirit, or as some call him, the Comforter, is with me.

It’s very easy to do. It’s easy to tune out the Holy Spirit, close out the connection on God and then wonder why we feel alone.

“Why did you leave me, God?” we ask.

He didn’t leave — I just don’t listen very well.

I drew myself up into the line, waiting for my ashes and prayer. It had been many years since I had observed Lent in such a way, but I figured today was as good a time as any.

The pastor took my hand, prayed with me and mentioned the fact that even though we are made of the smallest specks of dust, God loves them all.

If God can love the small specks of dust I am made of — He can love me, too.

We must remember that our flesh is only dust.

“Remember, you are dust and to dust you will return,” the pastor said as she brushed the sign of the cross on my forehead with her fingertip.

Yet, while the flesh will die, the spirit will live.

What we see here in the present, what we feel and what we think is important is simply ashes in comparison with the things that matter. God helps us weather the storms, and reminds us that our treasures reside in heaven.

Not among the ashes.

Let the waters rise, and wash away the dust of the Earth. We’ve got the peace of Jesus here with us.

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” Romans 8:31

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