Dust you are and to dust you will return.
Did you hear this on Wednesday?
Are you aware that you are dust? Skin, bones, flesh began and will return to dust.
Dust is holy. Life is holy.
I thought about healing on Wednesday. I thought about all the medical staff who have endured with this pandemic. I have thought about the doctors and nurses who have saved others.
I am watching a drama about a healer. ,She is a quick and precise with what she does. She ignores her wounds and moves on to the next thing that needs to be done. (Doing it, of course, with great ease and skill.)
She never feels self-pity or questions the Almighty. She accepts all things with effortless grace. Her faith never wavers.
She represents all who do this kind of healing work.
She keeps coming back when I am alone. She sweeps into my thoughts. She keeps edging her way back into my imagination...my aspirations.
She has been pushed towards death door. She has lost loved ones, has seen rape and torture, and yet she works. Her edges are fraying. And maybe, just maybe, something truer and more lasting is struggling to emerge.
Healing--any healing--is slow work.
Most healing is done in the dark.
Hardly anyone else sees, so the applause is minimal.
But it's the work of the One who has also felt ache and loss, wounding and rejection.
He knows. And because He knows, He is not afraid to enter my undoing and reweave me, thread by thread.
Ash Wednesday has passed. This was a day to embrace my own finite-ness and receive his infinite fellowship in every shadow. Know that you are his.
"Lenten light is the light that gets through what is torn, fractured, frayed, worn.
It brings its own kind of joy, a stubborn gladness that comes from having learned--
and learning still--what the Holy One can do with dust."
-Jan Richardson
He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.
He determines the number of the stars;
he gives to all of them their names.
Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;
his understanding is beyond measure.
The Lord lifts up the humble;
He casts the wicked to the ground.
Psalm 147: 3-6 ESV
Did you hear this on Wednesday?
Are you aware that you are dust? Skin, bones, flesh began and will return to dust.
Dust is holy. Life is holy.
I thought about healing on Wednesday. I thought about all the medical staff who have endured with this pandemic. I have thought about the doctors and nurses who have saved others.
I am watching a drama about a healer. ,She is a quick and precise with what she does. She ignores her wounds and moves on to the next thing that needs to be done. (Doing it, of course, with great ease and skill.)
She never feels self-pity or questions the Almighty. She accepts all things with effortless grace. Her faith never wavers.
She represents all who do this kind of healing work.
She keeps coming back when I am alone. She sweeps into my thoughts. She keeps edging her way back into my imagination...my aspirations.
She has been pushed towards death door. She has lost loved ones, has seen rape and torture, and yet she works. Her edges are fraying. And maybe, just maybe, something truer and more lasting is struggling to emerge.
Healing--any healing--is slow work.
Most healing is done in the dark.
Hardly anyone else sees, so the applause is minimal.
But it's the work of the One who has also felt ache and loss, wounding and rejection.
He knows. And because He knows, He is not afraid to enter my undoing and reweave me, thread by thread.
Ash Wednesday has passed. This was a day to embrace my own finite-ness and receive his infinite fellowship in every shadow. Know that you are his.
"Lenten light is the light that gets through what is torn, fractured, frayed, worn.
It brings its own kind of joy, a stubborn gladness that comes from having learned--
and learning still--what the Holy One can do with dust."
-Jan Richardson
He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.
He determines the number of the stars;
he gives to all of them their names.
Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;
his understanding is beyond measure.
The Lord lifts up the humble;
He casts the wicked to the ground.
Psalm 147: 3-6 ESV
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