“From dust we come, and to dust we return.”

I have said those words more times than I can count. Year after year, I dip my fingertip into the ashes and trace the shape of a cross onto waiting foreheads. The words are ancient and honest, reminding us of the limits of our mortality, intending to evoke a response to move toward God's healing love.

But this year, something unexpected happened.

As the first person stepped forward, I dipped my finger into the ash and I opened my mouth to speak the ancient words. Instead, the words that came out were these:

“Receive the limitless love of God.”

I didn't plan to say those words, and I certainly hadn't rehearsed them, but there they were.

Dust and love.

Limit and limitless.

Human fragility and divine persistence.

Where had that come from?

Later, I found myself wondering: What kind of God keeps choosing relationship with dust? What kind of God looks at fragile, fearful, inconsistent human beings and keeps moving closer instead of pulling away?

The ancient stories in scripture reveal this pattern. When humans hide, God seeks. When humans fracture, God binds. When humans wander, God follows. Again and again, love enfolds as if our deserving it isn't the issue.

Then another question surfaced, quietly: What kind of humans are we, that we need that kind of love so much? Like the air we breathe?

We are dust. Finite. Tender. Easily unsettled. We protect ourselves when we feel exposed. We withdraw when we fear rejection. We grasp for control when life feels uncertain. And yet beneath all of that, we ache for love that is sure and certain.

From dust we come, and to dust we return. But in between, we are held by a love that does not retreat, does not calculate our worthiness to receive it, and does not wane over time.

Limitless love.

It's difficult to imagine or grasp, but it is ours to receive.

My wish for you this week, Reader, is that you will allow yourself to be held by love that does not retreat, frighten, or leave. When you feel like nothing more than dust, may you remember that God once scooped up dust, breathed life into it, and called it good. May that same breath steady you now, reminding you that you are still held, still named, and still loved. Limitless love. That's the fiLLLed life.

Live a fiLLLed life, Melissa