remember you are dust

The sound of rain is heavy on the roof as my pastor reads thoughts on life and death.  I sit in the increasingly familiar magenta pew, sandwiched between my students, wishing I didn’t feel so fragile.  Wishing I hadn’t spent the past day and a half wrestling with deep, old wounds that have resurfaced.  Open and sore, rather than the shiny pink I would have assured you they were two days ago.

I look up from my lap, straining to hear the words read from the front.  Thinking that if I just listen hard enough maybe I can wade through this issue and focus on my return to dust and dirt instead of the rawness of my wound.

It is Ash Wednesday.  A time to contemplate death, both mine and the death of my Savior.  But all I can contemplate is fear.  Not fear of death, I wish it was fear of death, but it is fear of vulnerability.  Fear of hurt and pain, of old wounds, newly open and raw.  I long to contemplate returning to dust with the rest of the congregation.  It would be a welcome break to focus on the shortness of my life and my profound need for the death and resurrection of Christ.  But all I am is distracted by this wound.

I pick at my wound absentmindedly as my pastor speaks words that resonate so deeply, that are so directly connected to this ragged flesh that I swear I feel my heartbeat underneath my fingers as they trace this unhealed place.  “Can you trust Jesus if He takes you where you don’t want to go?” he asks.  “He is talking about death,” I tell myself, “not your fear of abandonment or how hard it is for you to admit that you need someone.  Those are petty issues.  Focus.  Don’t be so self-centered.”

But this fear consumes my thoughts.  I scribble notes, but only ones that resonate with this wound.  I chide myself again and again, “don’t think about your fear; think about Jesus.  Don’t think about your wound; think about His death on a cross.  Think bigger than yourself.”

My pastor ends his reading and tells us that the next few minutes are for us to contemplate death, both our own and Christ’s.  I close my eyes and bow my head, praying that I might focus on something more than me.

With eyes closed I realize what I want to know is that Christ will rescue me from death in the way I want to be rescued rather than the way I need to be rescued.  I want a painless rescue.  I want a rescue that poses as little an imposition on me as possible.  I want a rescue that makes it easy to focus on His death and not all the different things to which He is calling me to die.  I want to simply look death in the face and say, “no big deal, I can die to this.”  But I can’t.  I cannot.  All I can do is stare at fear.  And in my staring I realize that without Him I can die to nothing, not death, not self, not fear.

I stand in line, slowly working my way to the front of the sanctuary.  There is no music to sing along to, no slideshow to distract me.  Only my thoughts.  Only my desire to die to fear.  To die to each thing that keeps me from Him, that keeps me from His freedom.  Each death a step closer to Him.  Each step a step closer to the ashes that will mark my forehead.

I look at the woman holding the small bowl of ashes.  She is shorter than me, and she looks straight back at me, her brown eyes fixed on mine.  She swirls her right index finger in the ashes mixed with oil, her eyes still look straight into mine, as she says, “Remember you are dust and to dust you will return.”  Marking my forehead with the ashes, still looking into my eyes, she encourages me, “turn from sin and be faithful to Jesus.”

There is no lightning bolt.  There is no profound epiphany.  There is only one foot in front of the other.  One small death after another.  Each bringing me closer to Him, closer to His death.  Each bringing me closer to His resurrection.

Tagged as: ash wednesday, dying to death, dying to fear, dying to self, fear, resurrection