This morning, as I pause in the sunshine of my English garden, which is just beginning to reveal the true signs of Spring, I take a moment to reflect on the past 40 days.
In these past six weeks of Lent, I’ve experienced significant loss and sorrow, namely the loss of a dear elderly neighbor and friend, and a cousin not much older than me who took his own life. This gave rise to some profound emotions, grief, and lament.
During the same time, I’ve been journeying through Lent with others in the Soul Care Collective. I'm so grateful for it.
These six weeks leading up to Holy Week invited us to pause, examining our hearts through fasting and prayer in a world that so often rushes past reflection and doesn’t make time for lament.
The Journey of Lent 2025
Rooted in the early Church and modeled after Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness, our Lenten journey offered us a sacred rhythm, one we chose to embrace together. For those of us on a journey toward soul health, it became a particularly meaningful and transformative time.
Throughout this season, we journeyed through six unique practices:
Each week was also enriched with Christian historical art, adding depth and beauty to our reflections and practices. And every day, we followed the rhythm of Page, Person, and Plan, journaling scripture, engaging in spiritual conversations, and listening to music as a form of worship and connection.
Reflections on Grief
Looking back, this season of Lent brought moments of clarity, challenge, comfort, and growth. It reminded us of the value of slowing down, of soul care, and of walking intentionally with God and one another.
Reading posts by others, hearing about their own experiences of loss and grief, entering into their prayers prayed and gratitude expressed… helped me to face my own reality of loss, sorrow, and joy.
I didn’t do the practices perfectly - some weeks I forgot. It wasn’t about performing, but instead a consistent gentle invitation to move away from denial and avoidance toward acceptance and allowance.
If our spirituality promotes denial or avoidance, I think we are missing out on true spirituality.
Here's an example of how that might sound:
“I don’t need to worry about that, Jesus will take care of it.” Or, “I gave it to God,” when it really means, 'I don’t want to talk about it or face it anymore'.
At first glance, this might sound like faith, and sometimes it is. But it can also be a way to sidestep necessary emotional work, relational repair, or real-world responsibility. When spirituality is used to avoid discomfort or bypass pain, it stops being a path to healing and becomes a kind of escape hatch.
This is why observing Lent has been so powerful in my own life and in the lives of those who have shared in our Soul Care Community. We are invited to move toward and face reality in a way that prepares us for new life, that gets us ready for Resurrection Sunday.
Right now, I can feel the warmth of the sun and smell the hyacinths. I remember 40 days ago, when the garden was grey, winter lingered and the days remained short. In my part of the world, nature has been waking up over Lent.
Holy Saturday, the Day of Silence
It is a BEAUTIFUL day with bright blue skies… and I have a funeral to attend in a few hours.
It is never JUST Good Friday and never JUST Resurrection Sunday. We live in Silent Saturday more than we know. Silent Saturday has become one of the most meaningful days of the year for me.
Holy Saturday reminds me that we live in the tension and can hold both what has been and what's to come… we as humans are able to sit in deep agony, suffering, and death, while also experiencing more… more joy, hope, and love.
We can feel different emotions simultaneously. I’ve learned from reading Jerry Sittser’s 'A Grace Disguised' that sorrow can expand our capacity for joy and gratitude… it can make more of us, not less:
“It is therefore not true that we become less through loss—unless we allow the loss to make us less, grinding our soul down until there is nothing left but an external self entirely under the control of circumstances. Loss can also make us more. In the darkness we can still find the light. In death we can also find life. It depends on the choices we make.”
- Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows Through Loss
The variety of emotions that we can hold all at once and the discomfort this produces, is often us being expanded to face suffering with even greater empathy and compassion and to experience joy and new life on a much greater level.
These are the things I’ve learned in community - from you, from those who have shared vulnerably and openly in our precious community. We need each other.
Sometimes what we are holding and having to face seems too big, too out of control, too overwhelming. We need help holding it. We need spaces to gather with other people to celebrate and suffer, because that too expands our capacity.
Our capacity to hold deep sorrow and joy expands in community, when we have others that help us hold what is… that help us face reality and remind us that we are all held - all of us and our world - in the loving hands of a holy and good God.
This Lenten journey has been SO GOOD that I want to invite you to participate with us and enter into the beauty of Silent Saturday so that your Resurrection Sunday is even more significant and meaningful.
Here are the practices and meditations for the two final days of Lent.
Come with me as we journey through Page, Person, and Plan for each day, accompanied by a work of art from the history church.
No One Walks Alone
If you’d like to pause with me in this moment - whether you are able to sit in a garden with some sunshine or not - I want to invite you to use your imagination right now…
Simply imagine God’s hands, perhaps Jesus’ scarred hands… And imagine all that weighs heavy on you today, all your hopes, sorrows, and gratitude, any situation that feels too big or out of control… imagine that right now, Jesus is simply holding it, cupping his hands around Yours. Sit there in silence allowing Jesus to hold it for as long as you need.
“The quickest way for anyone to reach the sun and the light of day is not to run west, chasing after the setting sun, but to head east, plunging into the darkness until one comes to the sunrise.”
- Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows Through Loss
May you have others who are brave enough to plunge into the darkness with you. We need one another, more than ever. We need others to sit with, on days like Silent Saturday where we experience the tension of the depths of grief, lament, and hope.
If you’d like others to walk with you as you continue to practice soul care, I’d like to invite you to join the upcoming Strengthening Our Souls Cohort beginning April 25 (facilitated by yours truly!)—a transformative journey into deeper spiritual formation and soul care.
CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE COHORT
May the seeds planted in this season continue to grow, bringing renewal, healing, and lasting strength to our souls.
May the sun rise on your Easter Sunday bringing with it the reality of new life… HE IS RISEN!
About the Author: Meredith Ainley
Meredith holds an MDiv from Fuller Theological Seminary, where she served as a chaplain and also led children, youth, and global outreach at a local church in Santa Monica, CA. After over a decade in ministry, she transitioned into international recruitment and now offers vocational discernment coaching to students at Wycliffe Hall, University of Oxford.
She joined Soul Care in 2022 as Community Manager for The Soul Care Collective, cultivating engagement within our global digital network. Meredith is passionate about spiritual formation, especially in vocational contexts. She lives in Oxford, UK, with her husband and their puppy, and feels most herself outdoors or among trees and dogs.