
Ash Wednesday Meditation – Prayerful Tuesday
Ash Wednesday, Change, Christianity, courage, Failing, faith, Fear, forgiveness, God, Hebrew Scripture, Lent/Ash Wednesday, prayer, Psalm, repentance and fasting, Scripture, spiritual practice, Uncategorized
“Therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.”
Job: 42:6
“You desire truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.”
Psalm 51:6
Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. Growing up in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) tradition I knew about Ash Wednesday but the community I worshiped in didn’t celebrate it. It wasn’t until I was an adult, and living in California, that I really understood that having a smudge of ashes on my forehead meant repentance. Repentance is not just saying sorry, it means examining my past behavior and then changing what I do in the world, turning my actions around to behave as the faithful follower of Jesus I wish to be. And unless I begin the process of change, or at least try to repen...