Ashes

With Ash Wednesday tomorrow, I brought back this post from a few years back. Friends, may Lent be especially meaningful this year.

Ashes

Hosanna palms now blackened

 And I, remembering their joyful wave,

Come heart bowed;

And wait

For the sooty cross members on my brow.

 

Kneeling,

Thinking of Him

In wilderness days;

As I, in a lesser way,

Face my own uncharted land.

 

Time now

With the Sacrificial One;

Time for the soul grief,

The cleansing word,

The making-all things-new touch.

 

I rise to follow blood-stained prints;

To daily die

And in these ebony ashes bear

The sure seed

Of Resurrection hope.

Beverly Varnado ©
edited repost

I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

John 12:23-25