Today I burned last year’s palm branches. The same branches we once waved in celebration. The same branches that welcomed used to shout Hosanna. The same branches that welcomed Jesus with hope and expectation.
And today...they became ash.
There is something fitting about that.
The things we celebrate. The moments that felt certain. The spaces that once felt steady.
Life has a way of humbling us. Of reminding us how fragile it all is. There exist so many uncertainties.
The ashes have potential to feel heavy. To acknowledge grief, disappointment, unsettling conversations, broken trust. A world that feels tense and uncertain in too many spaces.
Ash Wednesday does not ask us to pretend any of that away. To live as though we are blind to the hurt.
It simply tells the truth: We are dust. We are fragile.
And we are still loved.
The palms become ash not as a symbol of defeat, but of transformation. What once marked celebration now marks surrender. What once was waved in triumph will now trace a cross on our foreheads tomorrow evening.
From dust we came. To dust we return.
And in between, we are invited to align our lives more deeply with God.
Lent begins in somber places. In honest places. In the quiet spaces where we admit we need mercy.
Maybe you feel that too this year.
Ash Wednesday meets us there. Not with shame, but with invitation.
Return. Realign. Come closer to God.
