“Ash Wednesday” is the beginning of the 6 weeks before Easter known as “Lent”.  This day is a reminder that we are mortal and should reconcile with God. It encourages us to refocus and realign ourselves in our relationship with God and one another, accepting our sinfulness with honesty rather than shame, trusting God to meet us where we are. 

The ashes applied to a person’s forehead allude to the verse “from dust you came and to dust you will return.”  The cross-shaped application is also a reminder of the symbol of water at baptism. It is an outward symbol of our penitence.  

Following Ash Wednesday, Huntsville First UMC will share a devotional for each day of Lent.  Our theme is “Out of the Wilderness and Into New Life”.  You will receive over 40 examples of wilderness interpreted by our members who have chosen to share their hearts, minds, and experiences. We are truly grateful for this loving church family and their faithfulness.  We hope it will be a blessing to you in your daily walk with Christ.

As for the theme, it is noteworthy that the Hebrew word “wilderness” is “midbar” which has the same root word as the word “dabar” meaning “word”. The same letters are also in the word “medabber” which means “speaking”. When the letters and root words are interpreted from Hebrew into English, we understand the phrase to mean “Where God speaks”. 
 
Wilderness is “where God speaks.”
 
In our noisy day-to-day world, we are often tempted to pay attention to everything but God. When a child doesn’t listen to a parent, what is that parent to do?  Father God (Abba) takes us out of our commonplace experiences and brings us to different sorts of wilderness -  removing distractions and noise in favor of quiet, stillness, and often isolation - so that we may hear His voice speaking to us. 
 
This Lenten season, our prayer is that we all find a quiet time each day to hear his voice and to experience God as Jehovah-Jireh, the Lord who provides. 
 
Prayer:  Father God, we admit that Ash Wednesday is hard for us to get our heads around. We often become uncomfortable with the idea that we won’t live forever and that we must reconcile with you. We know your love for us is stronger than we could ever comprehend, but it’s hard to receive it when we feel so unworthy. Help us to find calm in this chaotic world in order to hear your voice. Provide us your strength and peace to gracefully accept each and every blessing or challenge we face today so that we can show your love to everyone we encounter.  Amen. 

We hope you will join us today for Ash Wednesday services!
Chapel at noon
or 
Sanctuary at 6:00 pm