In the past, I usually equated Lent to time spent in isolation in nature, time to be with oneself and with God and spent in discernment—essentially an introspective journey. I held this belief until very recently.
Most days now it feels like I’m a daily participant in many Lent journeys. At my ministry site, I meet over 75 women a year who walk through the front door of our community reentry program, each on her own journey—in every sense of the word. They generally arrive in an Uber at our front door with all their belongings in a garbage bag or backpack, having just left incarceration.
The women often come to our community reentry home with their emotional walls up, a survival skill they have learned that has kept them alive thus far. This seems only natural. I’ve heard some of the most unimaginable stories from women who are comfortable enough to share. Nothing about our industrial prison complex makes sense to me. Their wilderness journeys have been constant for countless years, longing for Easter moments yet to come.
Over the next six months in our program, they will take an emotional, physical and spiritual journey. For some, it starts small: learning to trust a housemate, participating in workforce classes, attending community events to build support networks and, lastly but most importantly, showing up for themselves. Some jump in with both feet, ready to recognize and leave behind the patterns of their past and build something new. Regardless of how they begin, transformation is rarely a straight line, and walls take time to come down.
Some women will run, some will walk, some will tiptoe as they embrace this second chance at life. Others keep their protective walls up and isolate themselves in their wilderness journey, biding their time until their probation officer says they can leave. Many Lenten journeys look just like this—and God still shows up.
Lent reminds me that transformation can still happen in the wilderness—those spaces where we feel lost, unsure and vulnerable. It’s in those moments that God does some of the most profound work. I see women navigate their wilderness daily, inching closer to freedom—not just from physical confinement but from the shame, fear and despair that once defined their lives.
I operate from Jesus’ promise in John 10:10: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” God is an abundant God. Not one of scarcity or limitations. That’s the promise we cling to even in the face of brokenness—both personal and systemic.
As we enter this Lenten season, I invite you to reflect on what it means to embrace that abundant life. What wilderness might God be calling you through, and do you need to journey alone? What walls in your heart need to come down to make room for trust, love, community and transformation? And how might you extend that gift of abundant life to someone else—whether through kindness, advocacy or simply being present with someone in their journey?
Lent journeys can and do happen alone. I’ve recently learned, though, that the journey ultimately becomes something else if we walk it together.
The events leading up to Easter are made to feel like they happen in isolation—Christ shouting from the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” A rare instance of Christ feeling abandoned by all.
But we know Jesus wasn’t abandoned.
If Christ had truly been abandoned, there would be no resurrection, no one would have come to his tomb, and Christianity’s story would never have been told. But Christ’s community came, and a holy sisterhood arrived to tell the good news. Very quickly his whole community was alerted that morning, making Easter a community event—abandoning the notion that humanity lives in isolation from a God of love. I carry this belief with me in my ministry, and I remind and encourage us all to carry it and share this good news.
I’ve also learned that abundant life doesn’t come all at once. It’s a series of small steps, a daily choice to believe in God’s grace, in hope, and in the promise of resurrection and self-resurrection. As a community participant with women who are rebuilding their lives daily, I see a glimpse of that resurrection—life rising from our collective ashes. I witness hope springing from despair—a holy sisterhood.
This Lent may we all step into the wilderness with courage, trusting that God is there, guiding us toward an abundant community. And may we, as followers of Christ, be bold enough to help others find their way to the abundant life Jesus promised. When we do, we don’t just witness resurrection, we become part of it.
