Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and I am excited. Excited? You probably thought. If you are wondering, Ash Wednesday is the first day of lent. It is a day when most people will fast and mourn their sins and need of repentance. Yes this doesn’t automatically warrant excitement, and maybe that even sounds sacrilegious, but let me explain.
I love lent, and Ash Wednesday being its culmination, fills me with anticipation. Lent is a special time to me. It is when I no longer let myself make excuses. Beginning tomorrow, I will cut out the bad habits that I see have crept up in my life; habits that are edging out my health, time & devotion to God. There is a sense of mourning to Ash Wednesday, yes. I want to take a good hard look at my life and my futility, my need for a savior, and the time I’ve wasted in such habits and the detriment I may have caused to myself. But that is simply one step toward a new life that begins tomorrow! Ash Wednesday is a new day! A day of new beginnings. A day when life begins anew. I consciously and honestly give God back my life, my time and the ways I’ve become to think I’m in control.
When I was younger I’d give up silly things like MTV, but as I aged I began to incorporate things like additional prayer time or time with a journal in leu of other activities (like checking facebook comes to mind!). Lent has become a time for me of reclaiming life. I stop the routine of life that made each day come and go without too much reflection and incorporate an experience of truly seeing life. Through prayer I listen for God to lead, through reflection I see how God is working and areas I need him, and through more time in conscious thought and less in frivolous pastimes I pray for a new perspective and a leading toward a better more mature way of life. This of course is all by His grace that any of this may come to pass. But the fact that the God of the universe is in a relationship with me and wants to connect with me even more is exciting! And tomorrow it is like I am renewing my marriage vows and hopefully our relationship will be more mature, fruitful, and vibrant because of it.
It is true I am deeply sad I have not lived with this renewed spirit every day. But, I am so excited that He takes me back with open arms! And the love affair begins… Ash Wednesday.
