Looking out my March-window shows mixed signs of spring resting on a snow shovel.
But Ash Wednesday is Wednesday and there’s something about the day that makes me look forward to everything un-winter. In my soul . . .
The beginning of the Lenten season seems to shake winter right out of the heart to create space for the hope of spring. Lent, an old English word meaning spring begins in the dust of ashes, walks through darkness, and ends in beauty and triumph. Resurrection. But how do we get from winter-bleak to spring hope while pressing through a wilderness in our soul?
In the dark and lonely place of testing and encounter with the enemy, the Son of God became like us so we could become like Him – in complete dependence on the Father. Jesus journeyed in the desert of temptation for forty-fasting days in preparation for ministry and a hallowed path to the cross.
After forty days and forty nights He was hungry and the tempter came and said, “If you are the Son of God command these stones to become loaves of bread.”
But He answered, “it is written” . . .
Imagine our Savior fasting forty days in the desert – and imagine us as we try and do something Lent-ish like passing up Godiva or going twitter-less for a few weeks. Sounds crazy, I know.
We so often think of what we can do rather than who we can be. . .
The sacred season of Easter is an invitation to refocus our heart and go deeper and notice the holy in the ordinary. If you haven’t kept a journal, now’s a great time to begin. Something happens when we linger in the stillness and examine self and soul. Pray with your pen, purge your feelings, journal about a word that has kept you in the wilderness (worry, anxiety, fear, forgive, grudge) and cover it with the Word. It’s amazing what we discover about God and about us when we write it down. It can transform your life in forty days and the days that follow . . .
And friend, may Jesus bring to your winter soul the assurance of spring and unveiling of new hope . . . because it is written.
We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner sanctuary behind the curtain where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf. Hebrews 6:19
Verna
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