You are from the dust of the earth. 

I am from the dust of the earth. 

Life, death and everything in between is finite. Life can feel futile. Death of loved ones rock our world. Depression is the unwanted roommate that never cleans up after the mess it causes. Sickness lingers like the smell of used bowling shoes. Our nation is rife with politics where we feel forced to pick sides. The United Methodist Church is riddled with division and derision. 

The essence of who you are and who I am is the gift we can give to one another. 

In less than a week, I’ll return for yet another round of infusions. The irony isn’t lost on me that spending more time in a hospital could mean that I get more time on this earth. Since returning to ministry last July, I’m slowly learning that I’m not the same person I was. Truthfully, the more I try to be who I believed I was, the harder life becomes. Yielding to God each day to continually shape and form me is a practice of leaning into both life and death.

Lent is a season of tuning ourselves in with God who created, who creates and is creating. Let’s face it the world is out of tune with God. I feel out of tune. Life itself feels like listening to a radio stations with more static than is necessary. 

Rachel Held Evans wrote in a blog post, “We could not become like God, so God became like us.  God showed us how to heal instead of kill, how to mend instead of destroy, how to love instead of hate, how to live instead of long for more. When we nailed God to a tree, God forgave. And when we buried God in the ground, God got up.” 

I’m so grateful that God got up. God gets up when we can barely roll out of bed. God keeps going when we are frozen in indecision. In the next 46 days, I pray for the strength to share my weaknesses in an authentic way. I pray that God teaches me to release platitudes of faith and lean into the gift of death that’s as important as my ID. I pray that I stop fighting the truth that one day I will return to the dust of the earth. 

After all, isn’t that what Lent can be if we lean in?