A Prayer For Ash Wednesday

A Prayer for Ash Wednesday

First day of Lent

O God of dirt and dust,

We come to You on this day

Like children who know not what they do

But know they need the love of a parent

To guide them home.

We need Your mercy, O Lord,

For we are aware of the ways

We have hurt and harmed

And not honored You

With all our heart and soul,

Mind and strength.

We have been like toddlers,

Screaming when we haven’t gotten our way,

Biting and hitting when we’re upset.

But You welcome us

In the loving arms of Your understanding

And meet us in the humanity,

Just like a parent

Scoops up a tear-streaked, tantruming child

In need of rescue.

O Lord, we are so aware of our humanity,

And yet we’ve tried to hide it,

Covering our bruised and bloodied hearts

With self-reliance

And self-sufficiency,

Covering ourselves with

The leaves of false confidence.

But Lord, under it all,

As we raise our families

And lie awake wondering

What will become of them

And of us,

We sense our need for mercy and grace,

That we may receive

Your freely given gift of salvation.

O Lord, we like to think we’re superhuman

In our parenting, in our work, in our lives.

But on this day,

We come to You

With buckling knees and blistered feet,

Weary from the journey of self.

We do not readily submit to You, Lord,

And the reminder of our own mortality is

Uncomfortable at best and painful at worst.

But we desire to raise our children

In Christ’s abiding love,

And we know that for our faith

To hold water,

It must be big enough to hold even our suffering,

Even our death.

O God of everlasting life,

We confess to You the ways we have not served

As Christ served us,

And we have not forgiven

As Christ forgave us.

We take down all human posturing

To be perfect

And cast off all projections

Of seeming better than we are.

We come to You weary of the work

To always put our best foot forward

At home or at work or at church.

And instead we stumble at the foot of the cross

And humbly submit with honesty

The ways we have failed

To love, to serve, to forgive.

O Lord, as we mark this day,

We ask that You would cleanse our hearts.

Free us from our past

And prepare us for the future.

Thank You for Your infinite love

That knows no limits,

That gently guides us and has compassion

For the ways we are like little children.

Merciful God, You know the depths of our humanity

And lavish the knowing love

And understanding of a parent.

Thank You for being faithful to me

And for cleansing my heart again and again

So that I may raise my children

To know the depths of what it is to be

Fully aware of their humanity

And fully known and held

By Your forgiveness and faithfulness.

Help us not hide from our humanity.

Instead, remind us that we are but dust

And to dust we will return.

Amen.

Matthew 6:19-21; Ecclesiastes 3:20