My Journey to the Color of Ash: Faith-Filled Friday

A friend told me she was adding verse mapping to her life for Lent. Instead of taking something away, she wants to give something to God. I loved this idea. So I am copycatting and committing to verse mapping again.

I decided to start in the gospels at Palm Sunday, and go through to the end of each. As I turned to Palm Sunday the day after attending the Ash Wednesday service at my church, I thought to myself, This feels like I am jumping ahead of the Lenten season...reading Palm Sunday now? I was just marked with the ashes to remind me of my lowly, dust-derived state desperately in need of a Savior and have 33 days until Palm Sunday.

But with the beauty of verse mapping, and the Holy Spirit, I discovered that I was in the exact place of the Bible that I needed to be for the ashes to truly gain significance.

I actually went way before the gospels, to the prophesy of Palm Sunday--Zechariah 9:9. And somehow, in my study, within the verses before and after, I discovered the ash, the marking that had been on my forehead, the symbol used for men and women in the past who were described in the same way as Christ upon the donkey:

Lowly. Humble. Poor. Afflicted.

There was something more that God was trying to show me. I felt frustrated as I found possible
symbolism that seemed to be just between the words I studied. I kept searching, and I wondered if I was making it up. But I know, there is something more...something so beautiful and mysterious that to find it would dig deeper than I had ever gone. Maybe deeper than anyone has ever gone. And that's when I became resolute in my study, and surrendered the curiosity to mystery. Maybe there was nothing there. But I doubt that. Only because God has taught me that He truly is even more grand than what is written in the black and white of a page. Verse mapping Zechariah gave me a feeling of rubbing through the black and white to discover a new color beneath the page...a color nobody has ever seen. A color that I couldn't see but knew could be there.

And it really all started with the obedience of a church, filling a man-made tradition, or two, to revere a Holy God. Ash Wednesday and Lent have become something treasured in my heart this year...more than ever before.


The pastor was clear in stating that Ash Wednesday is not found in the Bible. That we keep this tradition because it adds to our walk in Christ, and reminds us who we are and Who He is.

But in my verse mapping on Palm Sunday, I discovered more to the ash and the tradition. The ashes are a humanity-old symbol--something used time and again throughout Scripture. The ashes are the black of a human heart in mourning, the dust of a dry, pitiful soul, and the outward symbol of a lowly, afflicted man in need of a Savior...a Savior who came to us, lowly and afflicted.

Justice For the Fatherless and Oppressed

I have decided to go through the Psalms while I Bible journal. And today...TODAY...my heart's cry

leapt out on the page. I have been thinking on the refugee situation in Syria. It is close to my heart, more than anyone might know. And God met me in His Word. If only to kindle Hope and assurance that my heart is focused where it should be.
I must act...in prayer, but also in practicality. I just need to find out how. Ann Voskamp gives us a call to action HERE

Yes, Lord, YOU shall provide the ultimate justice for the the oppressed. Let it be so. And let Your People arise against the man of the earth.

Bible Journaling: Faith-Filled Friday

I am learning about God's gifts every day. Realizing the difference between 'gift' and 'calling'. I understand that every child of God has one calling...to live a life as Christ did, to help the poor and bring Life and Love here. I learned that a few years ago (click here to read a post about it) as I strived in what I thought was my calling--writing--and realized it's just a tool God has given me for the true calling.

When I used to get calling and gifts confused, I would wonder why my love for drawing and rendering (the official landscape architecture term for, coloring), faded and kinda sits in my past like a used, un-needed gift.
Often, I consider that path a mistake...even though I have drawings upon drawings from my childhood, my teenage years, and my college years, sitting in the basement--maybe not the most talented drawings, but reflections of a passionate heart pouring on the page.

But now, I think about gifts, and their purpose, and how it's not always because we have this higher, mountain-moving purpose to use them...or even have this extraordinary ability in our gift. A gift is just that...a present from God that brings us purpose--Whether to move outward into the world for the sake of the calling, or to move upward in our relationship with God. Either way, it's about Love. Him loving His creation. And the created finding a gift that brings us to love even more.

I love to color...I love to draw...and now, even though it's really for my own meditation on God's Word, not some grand scheme of changing the world, I have started using it in my quiet time. It's only been a couple of days, but I am amazed at the preciousness of the gift to create art. My heart is flooded with wonder at the communion this Word picture meditation provides.

I may not be creating works of art by the world's standards, but I am creating, none-the-less. And it is a gift to find God amidst a color and a picture and a quiet time to reflect.

Have a Faith-Filled Friday.