Ashes of Regret, Grace of Forgiveness

She sat in the pew, feeling the cool trace of ash pressed onto her forehead. "Remember that you are dust, and to dust, you shall return."

But it wasn’t her mortality that weighed on her heart that night—it was her regret. Years ago, she had abandoned a friendship in a moment of selfishness. Her best friend had suffered a devastating loss, and instead of standing beside her, she walked away. First, it was a missed call. Then, a forgotten text. Soon, silence stretched into years. She never reached out. Too much time had passed. Too much shame had settled in. It was easier to believe that forgiveness was impossible than to ask for it.

Yet, as she sat in that Ash Wednesday service, she felt an ache she couldn’t ignore. She whispered a prayer she hadn’t dared speak before: "God, if there is a way, let me make this right." The next day, her phone buzzed. “I’ve missed you,” the message read. With tears in her eyes, she responded with the words she had held back for years: “I am so sorry.”
Forgiveness is an act of resurrection. It takes the ashes of what feels broken beyond repair and breathes new life into them.

Ash Wednesday is not just a ritual—it is a reckoning. We face our fragility, our sin, our regrets. Like David in Psalm 51, we come before God with raw honesty: "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love… Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin." (Psalm 51:1-2) David knew what it was to fail. He knew what it was to carry regret, to feel the weight of separation from God and others. But he also knew something deeper: God’s mercy is always greater than our sin. Ashes remind us of where we have been. But God’s grace tells us where we can go.

Maybe you are like the woman in the pew, carrying the weight of a missed opportunity for reconciliation. Maybe you are like David, wrestling with sins that feel too big to be washed clean. Or maybe, you are someone who has been deeply wounded, and the idea of forgiving another person feels impossible.

Forgiveness is not forgetting. It is not excusing the hurt. It is simply releasing the weight you were never meant to carry alone. And sometimes, the hardest person to forgive is ourselves.

It’s easier to believe that God forgives us than to extend that same grace to ourselves. We replay our worst moments like a movie that won’t stop looping in our minds. We hold onto guilt like a scar that refuses to fade. Even after we’ve made things right, even after God has washed us clean, we struggle to let go.

But if God—who knows the deepest parts of us, who sees every flaw, every failure—declares us forgiven, who are we to argue? Jesus did not go to the cross so we could punish ourselves forever. He bore our shame, our regrets, our mistakes—so that we wouldn’t have to. So, maybe today, the person you need to forgive isn’t someone else. Maybe it’s the one staring back at us in the mirror.
 
Reflection Questions:

1. Who do I need to forgive today?
2. Is there someone I’ve harmed and need to ask their forgiveness?
3. What would it look like to forgive myself as God has already forgiven me?

 
Pray with me. Merciful God, You know the burdens we carry, our regrets, and the forgiveness we struggle to accept. Help us to release what weighs us down. Teach us to forgive others and extend that same grace to ourselves. May we walk in the freedom of Your mercy, knowing that we are already made new. Amen.

Written by Rev. Kay Dubuisson