Each year on Ash Wednesday we repeat the words - from dust you came and to dust you shall return.  We remember that we are mortal and all will eventually die.  This year this ritual takes on deeper meaning for me.

Today a dear friend of mine is being cremated.  Roger died Sunday in a car accident in Nebraska.  He was 58 years old.

Roger was one of the pastors that performed our wedding.  Jack and I conducted the funeral when his first wife died and we did the wedding when he and Carolyn were married.  We’ve watched each others kids grow up and we have been there for the important events in one another’s lives.  Now today, Roger returns to dust.

Roger and Carolyn moved back to Nebraska just over a month ago.  They stopped on their way for a short visit.  Roger was returning to the pastorate after many years of ministry in the governing bodies of the denomination.  He asked if I had any advice from my similar move five years ago.  I told him to be prepared to be loved and to remember that life is too short to be unhappy.

Death is a reminder to us that life is short.  Death is what pushes us to set priorities and to decide what is REALLY important in life.  So we begin this season of Lent thinking of death.  It can be depressing, or it can be motivating.  If you died today what would you regret.  It is not too late to do those things you have put off.  It is not too late to have that conversation you want to have.  It is not too late to tell someone how much you love them and what they have meant in your life.  It is not too late, but sometime it will be.