02/18/2026
For Christians around the world, today is Ash Wednesday. As a therapist who specializes in traumatic loss and complex trauma, this has become the part of the liturgical year that I most anticipate. It’s when we are invited to be honest, raw, messy and loved. As always, I resonate deeply with Kate Bowler ‘s words. Be blessed today…
“In a world allergic to limits, Lent is a recalibration. It doesn’t ask us to be cheerful. It asks us to be honest. About our exhaustion. About our fear. About the disappointments we carry quietly. About the ache we keep trying to outgrow, numb, or spiritualize away.
This, my dears, is not a failure of faith, it’s where it begins. Because the ache is not what’s wrong with us. It is how we’re made: hungry.
And learning to live with the ache—without pretending it will disappear—is part of the long, stubborn path to joy.
So together, we will inch our way to Easter. Slowly. Honestly. Without skipping the hard parts.
Joy, if it comes, will not arrive as the absence of ache. It will come alongside it. A defiant yes whispered in a world that gives us plenty of reasons to say nothankyou. But first—dirt will be rubbed on our foreheads. We tell the truth. We are tired. We are longing. We are not finished.”
