For My Ashes...

For my ashes You give me beauty

For my mourning You give me joy

For my tears, Lord, You give me kisses

Oh, yeah, that`s how good You are


Gracious and Compassionate

You are so good, You are so good

Slow to anger, rich in love

You are so good, You are so good

These words are comforting, knowing and living in the Easter-tide hope and expectation that my ashes will be exchanged for kisses and joy. Today, though, is about living in the ashes. Living in the repentant despair of one born from dust, to return to dust. Today is Ecclesiastes' vanity so that we really enjoy the hope of Easter. In the presence of God's mercy, I am to be humbled to mere ash and disciplined by fasting and mourning. It is through this darkness that the dawn shall come.

Amen.