“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” the pastor said, as he smeared a hefty portion of oily ashes in a cross formation on my forehead.
My shoulders relaxed, and I heard myself sigh in relief. Oh, thank God.
The ashes almost felt like lotion on dry skin, or a salve on a wound. Refreshing. Healing. Comforting. Never words I had previously used to describe the hard and stripping season of Lent.
Most years, this same low-lit sanctuary, paired with my chic black outfit and black boots, feels like a forced sadness I must bring myself to endure. This year, as our worship team launched into a minor, dirge-like hymn, I felt consoled. Like a mother singing a lullaby to a child whose lungs were raw from screaming, my congregation sang, “Lord, have mercy,” in a season when lament felt palpable.
Longing for Lent in a World That Won’t Slow Down
Whatever combination of panic-laden news headlines, scrounging to pay bills in a harsh economy, or lack of work-life balance led me to this point, it sparked a longing for Lent that I’d rarely felt in previous years.
In fact, I’ve always said that the Lenten season kicks off at the worst possible time for me. It overlaps at the crossover between my birthday and my favorite Hallmark holiday, leaving my apartment scattered with more balloons and confetti than ashes and prayer books.
Yet this year, even as the streamers were hung, the world felt like it had less to celebrate.
As my awareness of suffering around the world grew, so did my awareness of my own limitations. “Each day has enough worries of its own” became more of a mantra than a platitude. My capacity to worry sometimes felt maxed out before 2 p.m. I needed to come to Him daily, even hourly, allowing Him to slowly peel these metaphorical urchins off my back, and feel my fatigued muscles twitch from carrying them for too long.
“He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.”
How often do we fall back on a go-getter attitude that compels us to push through? Whether through maturity or the apathy that settles in after a long, cold winter, this grittiness eventually starts to fade. You don’t realize you were holding your breath until your lungs begin to ache.
Lent as an Invitation, Not a Burden
And into this ache, Lent enters, inviting us to let go of our hardened ambition and receive the light and easy yoke of Jesus.
This invitation to confession, repentance, and lament often feels burdensome, especially for those who feel pressured—through moralistic legalism—to identify which rules or roles they have failed to fulfill.
But what if confession is simply the admission, “I need You more than I want You”?
And what if repentance is simply the proclamation, “I will turn to walk toward the One who loves me back, rather than toward faceless reflections that cannot”?
Whether through political ideologies, religious personalities, or self-help systems that ask more of you than they offer, our society is filled with false promises. They sound like everything we’ve been wanting. They solve the things we hate. They offer the things we think we’ll love.
Of course, our hearts feel drawn. Of course, our souls feel captivated. But how many of them are illusions? How many are mirages? Our Lord knows the answer. And at the risk of being perceived as the parent we angstily hate because He’s too strict, He still warns us. So we don’t have to go on hard-fought journeys through inhospitable wastelands toward brooks that were never there, leaving us thirstier than when we started.
Turning Thirty and Facing My Own Limits
Just after Lent began, I celebrated my thirtieth birthday.
As I looked back over my twenties, it became clear that this newfound longing for Lent didn’t stem from a dramatic rock bottom. It came from weariness. A slow and steadier hammer—one strike every time I read an overwhelming headline, every time I tried to do more in a day than my body was made for, every time I empathized too deeply with a friend’s suffering, every time an anxious thought sprang uninvited into my mind.
It was a hammering-induced weariness that reinforced both my finite limitations and my lack of desire to muster up more energy, more compassion, or more ambition.
It left me wanting, welcoming the reminder that “I’m not enough,” and to rest there, without qualifying it, without explaining how I would compensate for my not-enoughness.
Instead, I found freedom in realizing that, unlike our culture’s constant PR campaign to polish an ever-shinier public image, and unlike the self-help empire with yet another technique for improvement or another leadership conference on growing influence, I could simply scroll past.
I was never asked to enter those hamster wheels. I could opt-out.
The Gospel as Rest, Not Striving
The good news of the gospel capturing my heart in this season is the good news that I don’t have to save anyone, sustain anyone, or strive for anything—not even for myself.
Every non-negotiable we cling to becomes baggage that weighs us down.
So even Lent’s invitation to give up is not an invitation to confess more, repent harder, or adopt another impossible self-improvement or self-deprivation strategy. It is an invitation to rest. To experience freedom. To release the non-negotiables that have quietly worn down our souls.
It is an invitation to let the salve of my own mortality free me from trying to be anything more.
And somehow, remembering that I am dust has never given me so much life.
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If this resonated with you—if this season feels heavier than it should, or you’re realizing how tired your soul really is—you’re not alone. And you don’t have to keep pushing through on your own.
I created my Burnout Recovery Guide for moments like this. It’s a simple, honest pathway to help you slow down, reconnect with God, and begin rebuilding a life that actually feels sustainable again. Not by trying harder, but by learning a different rhythm.
If you’re feeling burnt out too, this is your invitation to stop surviving and start recovering.
