Lent is a tradition in some churches where worshippers conduct some sort of fast, or abstinence, during the 40 days leading up to Easter. It begins with a ceremony where the worshipper has ashes smudged on their forehead, signifying death. It’s meant to focus the heart on repentance and sorrow for sin. But when I first encountered people who observed Lent, it sounded like a strange sort of diet: one person was giving up chocolate, another was giving up sugar, and a third was giving up TV. To what end, I was never sure. It seemed to me like a religious do-over for failed New Year’s resolutions.

Lent, like so many other church traditions, can lose its meaning over time.

Lent wasn’t practiced in the church of my youth. We focused on the joy of the resurrection, not the sorrow of the cross. We sang “Blessed Assurance”, “To God be the Glory”, and “I’m so Happy in Jesus”. And if we didn’t sing enough, old Dwight would stand up, arthritic hands gripping the seat in front of him, and belt out “Victory in Jesus”. We didn’t often hear of ashes and death.

Once, though, a youth camp leader invited us to come forward to have our foreheads marked with ash, explaining that it signified our death to sin and self, and surrender to the life of Jesus within us. It was then that I first understood that for the Christian, death precedes life, instead of following it.

“You were made from the dust, and to dust you shall return,” God said to Adam at the very beginning. “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless, I live.” Paul said later. “I am nothing but dust and ashes,” Abraham admitted to God in Genesis 18.

Ash is commonly used as a fertilizer, to prepare a garden for more robust and healthy growth. It provides nutrients that enrich the soil to produce a greater abundance from the seed planted in it.

Could it be that ashes have the same effect on our souls? Can the ashes of our failures and sorrows birth in us something that nourishes our spirits and causes our lives to flourish?

Though we may not wear the ashes of regret on our foreheads, we still bring the marks of our sorrow and need to the cross. Before we can speak of resurrection, we must confront this death. We must experience the darkness of the tomb before the angel rolls away the stone.

In the world around us, death marks the end of something. It signifies loss. But in the Christian life, death marks beginnings. Emptiness precedes filling. Sorrow gives way to joy. He gives us a crown of beauty for our ashes, it says in Isaiah. Not just comfort in our grief, but victory, as old Dwight knew—victory in Jesus.

We Christians are a resurrection people, after all.

Those camp ashes no longer mark my forehead, but their smudge remains on my soul. The longer I live, the more I witness the sacred transformation of life out of death and hope out of despair. We must remember our ashes in order to fully appreciate the miracle of our coming resurrection.

Are you in a season of weeping right now? Know that the seed of your faith, planted in the ashes of your loss, and watered with the tears of your sorrow, carries within it the power to bring forth something beautiful. This is the economy of the kingdom, where nothing is wasted and endings birth beginnings.

Fasting from chocolate, or sugar, or social media can be good and helpful, but it doesn’t transform the darkness inside us. It is God alone, who came to bring life out of death, who works the miracle for us and in us. The resurrecting power of his love brings the transformation our hearts truly long for.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.

1 Peter 1:3-4