There are days during Lent that feel less like prayer and more like hanging on. Days when hope feels distant, faith feels shaky and the waiting feels endless.
Sometimes it’s not just our own personal lives that feel heavy — it’s the world around us, too.
We live in a time that is chaotic and divisive. Headlines feel overwhelming. Jobs feel uncertain. Finances feel tight. Plans don’t always work out the way we hoped. Health is declining. It can start to feel like everything, all at once, is teetering on the edge of a cliff.
Brooke Colburn
There was a moment on Amy Poehler’s podcast, “Good Hang,” when she interviewed former SNL cast member Kate McKinnon that has stuck with me. Amy, half-jokingly and clearly sarcastic, asked Kate, “So what’s God’s plan for us?”
Kate responded: “Oh, God? He Gone. He jumped ship, went to a different universe. We are d-d-doomed.”
It’s funny but it also hits close to home.
Because when the world feels like it’s spiraling and our own lives feel stuck, we tend to question our faith, and her statement can start to feel more like an honest assessment. Like maybe God really did step away and we’re just trying to make sense of the mess on our own.
But Lent, that time of reflection that leads us to God’s great hope, gently pushes back against that idea. It reminds us that feeling abandoned is not the same as being abandoned.
Often, the moments when God feels far away are the moments God is working most quietly in our uncertainty — shaping us, steadying us, holding together things we can’t see yet. God’s presence isn’t always loud or obvious. Sometimes it’s patient, seemingly hidden and slow.
“Hope doesn’t always arrive as a big breakthrough or clear answer.”
It helps to remember that even Jesus lived in a tense, divided world where Caesar and Rome controlled everything. He knew fear, grief and uncertainty. He questioned, he wept, and he waited. Jesus’ story tells us that doubt and frustration that come from our never-ending uncertainty don’t disqualify faith — they exist alongside it.
Hope doesn’t always arrive as a big breakthrough or clear answer in our lives or in the world.
Sometimes it looks like getting through the day, choosing compassion or noticing one small moment of grace. Maybe it’s a quiet prayer, a deep breath or simply the strength to keep going.
Maybe that’s good enough for today. And maybe our job isn’t to have everything figured out. Maybe we just need to keep the faith and keep showing up, even when it’s hard — especially when it’s hard.
Waiting is a courageous thing to do. And guess what? God meets us right where we are — in the uncertainty, in the waiting and in the hard days. God is still at work, even when it feels like God has gone quiet. God is not finished.
As Frederick Buechner wrote, “Resurrection means the worst thing is never the last thing.”
Brooke Colburn is president of Colburn Films and serves as a deacon at St. Matthews Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky. She also is a mother to two elementary-age boys.