My favorite story about getting ashes was the time my Wife, Daughter, and I went to an evening Ash Wednesday Liturgy and afterwards it was late and we had not eaten much that day (fasting), so we went to a local pizza restaurant to get a Cheese Pizza. While there, a gentleman was moved by how cute our daughter was. Said she reminded him of his grand-daughter whom he didn’t get to see much.
Our waiter saw our ashes and it sparked a conversation about how he used to be Catholic and used to go to Church regularly, but had fallen away. Seeing our ashes reminded him of how much he needed God in his life and, by the end of our conversation, he had decided he wanted to return to church. God works in and through others around us, and sometimes he uses me to work in the lives of others around me!
We later asked for our bill and our waiter said that the gentleman sitting behind us, the one who said our daughter reminded him of his grand-daughter, had payed for us and wanted him to tell us that we have a beautiful family.
We left feeling God’s amazing love for us and for everyone we had encountered that night. And it all started with a simple gesture of receiving ashes on our forehead, a sign that our lives are all about God and that we belong to Christ.