The Ash Wednesday Hotel

I grew up going to Southern Baptist Churches. Those churches, along with many other protestant churches across the world have, in my opinion, “thrown the baby out with the bath-water” when it comes to diverging from Catholic traditions. One such tradition is to celebrate the Christian calendar. This calendar has been a tool for Christians for centuries and I only discovered it seven years ago. It was this time seven years ago that I began going to my current church (which falls more in the moderate Baptist church category) and began to learn about Lent.

Lent is the time spent in preparation for the cross of Jesus Christ. I find Easter Sunday significantly more joyful when the forty days before are spent in reflection and though it is difficult, repentance. I try not to rush to the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus by walking slowly through Ash Wednesday, the forty days of Lent, Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. Often, Christians choose to “give up” something and/or take up a new practice during Lent to aid in being more reflective in this season of the Church.

Greg and I spent our Ash Wednesday morning driving to a town near Dallas. As a consequence, we missed all services in our town. After a full day in a dentist chair, (more on that later,) I got creative with some hotel matches, a soap dish and a little “blood of Christ.”

We were grateful for this website to aid us in our reflection as we marked each other’s foreheads in ash with a reminder of our plight without the grace of Jesus Christ.