The Daily: Ash Wednesday February 18, 2026

“For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” — Genesis 3:19
“You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house.” — 1 Peter 2:5

Dust Together

Ash Wednesday begins with a stark and honest truth:
Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

There is no bravado in ashes. No self-sufficiency. No illusion of control. Just dust — the same dust that formed Adam, the same dust that clings to every one of us.

Ashes level us. They remind us that we are fragile. Finite. Mortal.

But they also remind us of something else: we share the same dust. The cross traced on your forehead is made of the same ash as the cross traced on mine. We kneel side by side in our vulnerability.

Lent does not begin with shame. It begins with truth. And the truth is this: we cannot carry life alone. We were never meant to.

Strength for the long way is not denial of weakness. It is learning to bring our dust into community. It is discovering that even in our mortality, even in our uncertainty, even in our sin and fracture, we belong to one another.

The stones gathered from the Jordan were once dust. Formed, shaped, and lifted together, they became a memorial of shared deliverance. So it is with us.

We are dust.
And we are being built together.

As we begin this Lenten journey, we do so not as isolated individuals trying to prove our worth, but as a people remembering who we are — fragile, beloved, and bound together in God’s mercy.

Ashes mark us.
Community holds us.
Love carries us.

Reflection Question
How does remembering your mortality deepen your need for—and gratitude for—the community God has placed around you?

Prayer
God of dust and mercy, as we begin this Lenten journey, remind me of my fragility without letting me forget my belonging. Teach me to walk these forty days not alone, but shoulder to shoulder, held by Your love and the love of Your people. Amen.