Ash Wednesday. The day we mark ourselves with dirt and admit the obvious thing nobody wants to talk about: we’re going to die. All of us. Even people we think are permanent. Even people we think are invincible.
There’s something holy about that honesty. Something that cuts through all the noise about self-improvement and success and getting ahead. Because none of it matters if we’re not transforming into people who actually know how to love.
I was thinking about that. About what Jesus meant when he said to take up our cross. We’ve made it sound masochistic—like we’re supposed to suffer. But what if it just means: stop running. Stop pretending. Stop trying to avoid the hard parts of loving God and loving people.
That’s the real cross. Not literal suffering. But the death of pretense. The death of protecting yourself from being actually known. The death of thinking you can be safe if you just work hard enough, achieve enough, manage enough.
Lent’s coming. Forty days of choosing, over and over, to be real. To let go of something you’re holding too tight. To face the parts of yourself you’d rather ignore.
And here’s the gift nobody talks about: that actually sets you free. Not in some magical way. But because you stop spending all your energy keeping yourself from falling apart. You just… fall apart. You admit it. You let God meet you there.
That’s the whole point. You’re not good enough to earn God’s love. And God loves you anyway. And that changes everything.
A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope