A reflection on Lent, renewal, and the quiet ways prayers are answered
There’s a part of me that, in years past, would have looked at this weekend’s forecast and felt immediate disappointment. Rain, all weekend. Plans rearranged. My beautifully planned outdoor Easter tablescape rendered useless. I might have selfishly had a general sense that something was being taken away. This year, my reaction feels entirely different.
After months and months of no appreciable rain, and watching the land grow drier and the conversation turn again and again to drought and the very real and urgent water emergency impacting our community, that same forecast now feels like something closer to relief and gratitude. The kind that doesn’t need to be said out loud to be felt deeply. Everyone is feeling it, you can tell. Everyone in their own way around here is praying for any relief that rain will bring.
For me, that shift didn’t start with the rain forecast. It started a few weeks ago. As I wrote about in a prior post, I had a medical scare that stopped me in my tracks. I can still picture the moment – sitting still, waiting, the quiet hum of everything around me continuing as if nothing had changed, while internally everything had. That is the kind of moment that narrows your world in an instant. The kind of moment that gently but unmistakably reminds you how little control you actually have, no matter how well you plan, organize, or anticipate.
Everything unnecessary fell away for a bit. The noise faded. The small things that usually feel urgent…weren’t. And in their place was something much simpler. Prayer, hope, and finally, gratitude. Deep, soul-stirring gratitude.
I’ve never approached Lent in a particularly formal or structured way, but this year it has felt different. More intentional. It has been less about giving something up, and more about paying attention and about recognizing what has been given. I have spent it sitting in the awareness that things could have gone differently.
Now, almost quietly, Easter is here. It’s here not after a great deal of fanfare, but with a steady sense of arrival. A reminder that renewal is real, that prayers are heard, that His promises are fulfilled – not always in the ways or timelines we expect, but often in ways we only fully recognize when we slow down enough to see them.
And this week, I have felt that in a way that’s hard to miss. Dave has been out of town, and I have been eager for him to come home for the holiday weekend. In the space of a few ordinary days while he’s been away, I’ve found myself in several conversations with women – some who I’ve known for a while, some who are relatively new acquaintances – that have felt, unmistakably, like answers to prayers I didn’t even know how to fully articulate at the time, or that maybe I didn’t even realize I was praying. I have sensed the kind of connections that feel easy, genuine, and quietly grounding. The beginnings of a community. One that feels both new and, somehow, already familiar.
I find myself feeling something I didn’t expect quite this strongly – anticipation and joy. Real joy that comes from gratitude and relief and wonder for the miracles around me. Not tied to a single event, but to a sense that something is taking shape. That what I had hoped for – prayed for, even in vague or half-formed ways – is beginning to show up in real and tangible ways.
I’ve realized that this season of renewal hasn’t just been happening around me, but it’s been happening in me, too.
Stepping away from my work life, something that for so long defined both my days and my sense of purpose, felt at first like a loss of structure, maybe even a loss of identity. But slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, it has given way to something else. It’s given way to space, and energy. I feel a quiet sense of possibility. Not a fully formed “next thing,” but the beginnings of one. A renewed curiosity. A different kind of momentum.
In quieter ways, it has also given way to a return to things I had set aside. Like my yoga practice. It’s not something I’m thinking I need to accomplish or check off, but more of a way of coming back to myself. Of moving, breathing, and noticing again. It’s reconnecting with a sense of steadiness that had been easy to overlook in busier seasons.
Maybe that, too, as simple as it sounds, is grace. It’s not a sudden, dramatic reinvention, but a gentle stretching and unfolding. Even if I am not able to do all the poses as deeply as I used to, it is a reminder that something new can take shape in its own time, if I am willing to let it.
Spring does this too, of course, in the way the air softens. The way things that looked dormant suddenly aren’t. The subtle reminder that change doesn’t always announce itself – it just shows up, and if you’re paying attention, you notice.
Maybe that’s why this rain forecast feels different. It’s not an interruption. It’s part of the season, and part of the renewal. It is something that, in its own quiet way, makes what comes next possible. A few months ago, I might have seen it as something that was disrupting my plans. Now, it feels much more like something that was needed: an answer to prayers.
Hallelujah, indeed. Hallelujah.
Red Chair Reflections 