It’s a little weird having Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday on the same day. We’re all waiting to see who’s going to come to our service of penitence and remembering mortality tonight instead of going out for a fancy meal to celebrate love.  For those nerdy, Addams Family Christians like me, there’s no better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than by confessing our sin and remembering that though we are fleeting, God’s love endures forever.  Though our love fails time and time again, God’s love never fails.  As a husband, father, pastor, and friend, I find Ash Wednesday to be the perfect grounding of my identity…I cannot be all things to all people. I cannot give all of me to everyone.  I cannot live up to everyone’s expectations of me all the time.  I am but dust, and to dust I shall return. It’s in the confession of this realization and acceptance of my finitude, my tininess, my limitation that I face despair and cling to the Eternal Lover of My Soul.  The next 40 days are not really any different from any other days of the year. We are always in the wilderness, and the Holy Spirit that raised Christ from the dead is always closer than our breath. If anything, Lent is a great time to accept that with mortality comes limits.  It is a great time to allow ourselves to become exhausted by loving others, spreading kindness and mercy until we’re completely worn out.  It is a great time to return to the well of God’s love for us in Christ Jesus, a love that is new every morning, a well that never runs dry.

I’ve been waiting a long time to introduce a new permanent character to the Wesley Bros world: Sarah (Sally) Gwynne, the love of Charles Wesley’s life. Charles was often sick and faced depression, and in that, he often (like a true Emo) longed for the peace of death.  He fell in love with Sally, the daughter of wealthy squire, Marmaduke Gwynn.  Sally was literally out of his league, an elite lady nearly twenty years younger, while Charles was a poor but famous poet/preacher.  But they really loved each other, and really understood each other.  I love their love story, and I can’t wait to see how it will unfold, Wesley Bros style.