Come, sit in the ashes with me

As we begin our journey to Good Friday and then Easter, we gather on Ash Wednesday to be reminded of our place in creation. That we are made from the stuff of the earth - the same building blocks which all of creation draws life from. We remember that we are no more, and no less, than the trees, the squirrels, and rocks.

It has struck me that ashes also remind us that when life becomes more than we can bear, and we don’t know what else to do, we can sit with our pain and our grief. The ashes come to symbolize the brokenness inside of us that can’t find expression in any other form.
Just ask Job.

Job is introduced to us as a wealthy man who is well respected by his neighbors. God calls him “the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless - a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil.” (Job 1:8)

Then one day, for reasons that just do not make sense, Job and his wife lose everything - their ten children die in a natural disaster, their livestock are stolen, and their servants are killed by raiders. In quick order, Job’s wealth and security are gone. But then it gets worse - Job breaks out in boils from head to toe.

Overwhelmed and in great mourning, Job goes to sit among the ashes. He listens as his wife throws his faith back at him. But, Job refuses to give up on God. He proclaims that just as we receive blessings from God, we also receive pain. (We can come back to that in a future post)

I want to pause for a moment and show mercy to Job’s wife, who has every right to question Job’s continued faith. She has also lost everything. And if Job dies, she will be at the mercy of family to take her in and care for her. She has every right to be afraid and to question the goodness of God. She can only watch as her husband sits in the ashes.

The thing about ashes is that there is very little life left there. We can poke around, and we might find pieces of wood that haven’t burned completely, but we won’t find anything growing or green. Ashes are barren. And when we are hurting, this how we can feel on the inside.

When life becomes more than we can bear, when we want to close the curtains and curl up into a ball, this is when we find ourselves among the ashes. In those times, we need people to draw near to us. Job’s friends willingly came and did just that.

When three of Job’s friends heard of the tragedy he had suffered,
they got together and traveled from their homes to comfort and console him.
Their names were Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite.
When they saw Job from a distance, they scarcely recognized him.
Wailing loudly, they tore their robes and threw dust into the air over their heads
to show their grief. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and nights.
No one said a word to Job, for they saw that his suffering was too great for words.
Job 2: 11-13

For Job, it was in this moment of deep pain, that three of his friends come and sat with him. They took on the signs of mourning themselves. They tore their robes and threw dust on their heads.
And they sat.
For seven days, they didn’t say a word because they knew there simply were no words.

(Job’s friends will eventually speak and undo all the good they did. But for now, let’s focus on what they did right)

I do what I do with grief conversations because I believe that when Job’s friends recognized that their friend needed someone to sit with him, they did what they needed to do. They dropped everything and went to be with him. Their presence was a reminder to Job that there were people who cared about him and his wife, and who saw his pain. They couldn’t bring back everything and everyone who had been lost, but they could share his grief. They were willing to get emotionally “messy.”

Something bothers me, though. I want to know if anyone came and sat with Job’s wife. Did anyone weep with her as she mourned the death of her children? Did anyone listen to her fears about what the future held? Did she have friends who reminded her that she wasn’t alone? I choose to believe she did.

At the start of the Lenten season, whether you are the one carrying a heavy load of grief, or you are the one walking with someone who is, the ashes remind us that we need each other. We don’t need perfect friends with the perfect words who can magically take away our pain.
Job, and Jesus on his way to cross, remind us that we simply need people who will be with us wherever we are.
We need people who are willing to let our messiness get on them. People who are willing to go home, change their clothes, and sit with us again. My prayer is that each of you will have someone show up for you, or that you will be the friend who is willing to show up for another. Our pains are made easier carry when we don’t have to carry them alone.

As always, if you would like someone to help you carry your grief, I am here. I would be honored to sit with you.

Peace,
Denise