Ashes and Hearts

Sometimes there are issues I press with my children. Things they definitely Need. To. Know.  And I become frustrated when those lessons don’t sink in, when the morals aren’t taken to heart. Then again, there are times when God beautifully dovetails circumstances to teach lessons in a way I could never manage.

Today is Valentine’s Day. You know that; it’s difficult to avoid the fact. We’ve been inundated with hearts and cupids since New Year’s Day. Today is also Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten journey many Christians undertake before Easter. For weeks my children have been excited about the candy hearts and cards they would get today. They’ve been less excited as I attempted to tell them about the meaning of Ash Wednesday and Lent, the time when we reflect on our sin and mortality, to remember why Good Friday and Easter were so necessary.

This morning as I set out their homemade cards and candy hearts, I had largely given up on the idea of making this day about anything other than hearts and flowers and candy. Not this year.

Instead, I set out to talk with my daughter about something else she definitely Needed. To. Know.

Years.

We’ve covered it before, but I felt she was a little shaky on it still, so I drew a rough timeline and we again went over the concepts of B.C., A.D., centuries and years. I had added the year 2100 to the timeline, and offhandedly remarked that her daddy and I wouldn’t live to see that year, but that she might.

She burst into tears, and I was suddenly knee-deep in a discussion of mortality, grief, and our hope in the Resurrection.

The may sound like a bad thing, but it was a conversation we needed to have. We talked about pain and hope. We talked about returning to dust and being raised with Christ. We talked about the different perspectives of earth and heaven, and the fact that heaven is our home. I was able to tell her gently, for the first time, that grief over a loved one is something she will experience far sooner than she thought or I hoped. And we cried together.

It was the most beautiful Ash Wednesday encounter I could have imagined, and I had nothing to do with it. Once again, I was reminded that God knows the lessons my children—and I—need to learn, and He will do the teaching if I step aside and let Him.

 “All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return” Eccl. 3:20.

“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20).

“For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Rom. 6:5).

“As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. … For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

“So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:8-10, 12-13).