This morning our world woke up hazy. Blanketed in a pea soup fog that made the landscape- and our emotions- feel fuzzy around the edges. As the sun began to burn off the mist, all you could see in the road ahead was a thick, illuminated blanket of cloud. Not the safest driving conditions, but the morning traffic sped on, ignoring to the sun-blinded stretch of road ahead.

This morning our world also woke up to Ash Wednesday. One of the few days in our church year blanketed in mystery and lament. For many of us, today marked the beginning of a 40 day journey to the cross.

I feel pretty confident assuming that most of us prefer clear driving conditions to pea soup fog. It’s natural, correct even to want to see the road ahead of you. And most of us speed through our daily routines assuming we see the stretch of life ahead of us as well. We have to. Admitting that we can’t know what may happen tomorrow, or next week, is too daunting, too terrifying of a prospect to live with. So, we clench our fingers around the steering wheel and speed off into the haze, telling ourselves we see the future clear as day.

However, during Lent, we are given the invitation to slow down. To admit that we don’t feel in control. To confess the silent fears that keep us up at night. For many today, we heard the words “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The ashes of celebration from Palm Sundays past are smeared on our forehead, in the shape of death. We are given the gift of our mortality, our fragility, this day.

The purpose of the Lenten Season is for us to ponder the gift given at the Cross. To fully inhabit the redemption bought through the Resurrection. But we can’t do this unless we allow ourselves to feel our pain. To feel the weight of the sin that keeps us bound, curved in on ourselves, unable to fully accept God’s love.

So, today, the invitation is to stop. Stop rushing, stop performing, stop running from the fears that keep us from being honest about our own pain. Feel our hurt, and lay it bare before our Creator. Don’t fix it, pretty it up, or pretend all is fine. Allow yourself to be fully seen, for only then can we be fully loved.

The pain can be a gift, if we allow it. A reminder of our need for Christ, and the healing offered at the cross. We are not the people of the already-enough, but those who admit our need for rescue. Give yourself the gift of your own weakness today. Taking the first brave step into the thick fog of pain is the only way to walk towards healing.

My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.

Psalm 51:17