A First Sunday in Lent Reflection ~ Choosing Steadiness in this Season
This time of year carries more brown and gray than beauty. The landscape looks tired, but that muted backdrop has its purpose. It sharpens what is beginning again in the budding burgundy at the tips of branches, the quiet push of green beneath old leaves. Even the air holds the faint promise of returning spring scents.
My faith story has not been so different.
I spent the first part of my life in a conservative Protestant tradition. I grew up in my father’s church, where my Christian education was as thorough as it was deep, and I am better for it.
However, as I matured spiritually, I began wrestling with parts of the theology, particularly around salvation and sanctification. I struggled to understand the relationship between baptism and Christ’s finished work on the cross. I could not reconcile in my own mind how those two realities fit together.
Sanctification, too, felt uncertain to me. I don’t think my teachers left anything out. I simply hadn’t grasped it yet. I wondered whether I could somehow lose my place in eternity if I failed to live within certain expectations. Which of my many mistakes would be the one that finally rendered me disqualified?
Which of my many mistakes would be the one that finally rendered me disqualified?
A wise friend, now a pastor, explained it this way: “We are saved by Christ’s blood shed on the cross. Anything added to or taken away from the blood of the cross is not true salvation.” That sentence settled something in me. Christ’s work was complete. My salvation rested not in my performance, but in belief, repentance and the acceptance of His grace, and I am His forever.
Sanctification began to make sense after that. It is not a test I have to pass, but a lifelong turning away from sin and toward Christ, a journey toward holiness that will not end until I see Him face to face.
I leaned into more Evangelical circles for a season in the middle of my life. Those teachings opened my eyes to assurance and grace in fresh ways. I grew, and I found peace that carried me through difficult years. The freer style of worship, both energetic and expressive, gave me the energy I wanted then, a faith that felt alive in the moment. It carried me through a time in my life spent in deep, uncertain waters. I am grateful for it.
And yet…
Lately, I find myself looking for something steadier. I miss the rhythm, the confession, and the repetition that settles truth in me when my emotions run unsteady. I crave words spoken by believers long before me, creeds that tether belief to history and a structure that does not shift with my mood or the cultural moment.
This morning on the first Sunday in Lent, we stepped back into a liturgical service of the faith of my youth. It felt less like revisiting something old and more like returning home.
The words were familiar before anyone spoke them. The call and response, the standing and kneeling, all asked my body to participate, not just my emotions. I found comfort in knowing what came next, because it felt grounded. The repetition that once felt restrictive now felt anchoring.
Steadiness
Michael felt it too, the quiet order and the reverence and the sense that worship is participation, not performance.
We are not returning to every theological position of our youth. We are returning to the beauty of the liturgy, the confession spoken together, the weight of the Nicene Creed, the slower pace, the sunlight through stained glass. We still share the acknowledgment that we are sinners in need of grace, and that God has already given it.
This morning felt fuller and rooted, and none of it demanded an emotional response. It simply offered substance, and I realized I need to be anchored more than I need to be lifted.
These days, I am less interested in what stirs me and more interested in what steadies me. Michael and I are choosing steadiness for Lent. We are trusting that in a season that looks muted on the surface, something deeper is quietly taking root.
