Remember & Return

Our, long-awaited son was born on Ash Wednesday. 

Not the obvious choice as far as church holidays to choose from, when celebrating new life after years of infertility. Easter or Christmas would have been the more apparent choices - the illustration of waiting and pain woven into God's plan of redemption and new life. But Ash Wednesday...a day to recognize our immortality? The inevitability of death? It doesn't necessarily scream, "Welcome to world, baby James." 

But as I've had almost a year to reflect on this, I believe I've made the connection. 

The promise of dying leads us to His promise of belonging. 

Before James, we suffered two miscarriages. It's a different kind of death. The death takes place in your own living, breathing, growing body. Death occurs within the living. It can be very difficult to separate shame when it is so physically and emotionally intimate. 

"The Lord gave and the Lord takes away." (Job 1:21). 

As I was pregnant with James, my constant prayer was "God, protect Your child." Although another loss was more than possible, I resisted to rest in the haunting possibility of death -- but rather I rested in the eternal promise: "My child belongs to God." 

Ash Wednesday shows us our immortality. It promises death. But in this promise, we are reminded of who we belong to. We are God's. From the moment we were conceived to our last breath - God calls us His children. We are His. In life, in death, and in the life ever after: we belong to Him. 

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

With Christ, we can: Remember that you are His, and to Him you shall return. 

Last year, as the Church marked their foreheads with ashes; I swaddled my sweet, beautiful, living newborn feeling nothing but untouched joy. I held life for the first time, feeling alive in an entirely new and complete way. 

My prayer for James continues to remain:

May your life be anchored in the truth and joy of belonging and returning to Him.