Lent Begins in Ashes – St. Nick’s News March 7, 2025

Full St. Nick’s News for March 7, 2025

Dear Friends,

This week we entered the season of Lent. It has been a full and beautiful week with our teens leading and cooking for us at the Pancake Supper this past Tuesday and a glorious Ash Wednesday full of meeting new friends and offering Ashes to Go to our neighbors and community. We were led by some of our children at our Family Ash Wednesday Service who did a spectacular job reading! As we begin this season, I have appropriately found myself reflecting on my hopes for all of us for the next forty days.

Lent begins in ashes, reminding us of the dust from which we came and the grace that sustains us still. For forty days, we walk the road that leads to Easter, not in haste, but in a holy slowing—turning our hearts toward God with intention. The Church, in her wisdom, gives us this season as a gift, a space to examine what clutters our souls and keeps us from knowing the full depth of God’s love.

Lent is not about spiritual performance or self-improvement. It is about clearing space—shedding what is not life-giving, so we can see more clearly, love more deeply, and live more fully into the story of Christ. The ancient practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving help us do just that. We pray, not to impress God, but to listen. We fast, not to punish ourselves, but to remember what truly sustains us. We give, not out of obligation, but because generosity rewires our hearts for love.

Some of us may find Lent in silence, others in morning walks or candlelit prayers. Some may fast from noise, from hurry, from the endless pull of distraction. Others may take on a practice of kindness, of gratitude, of reaching out to someone who feels forgotten. However we walk this road, we do not walk it alone. Jesus Christ goes before us, and grace meets us at every turn.

I hope and pray you find space to connect with God in Christ Jesus. We have plenty of offerings here at St. Nick’s for you to draw near to God and one another. We have books you can borrow, and prayers to be shared. Or maybe just be intentional in joining in at one of worship services or serving one another through hospitality or coming to Dinner Church.

My hope for you and for me, dear friends –

Whatever you add, subtract or encounter, at the end of this season, when dawn breaks on Easter morning, we will know—deep in our bones—that we are not the same. We will have made space for resurrection, and that is no small thing.

God’s Peace, Love, and Blessings,
Beth+