While Walking with Purpose Founder Lisa takes time to write our next women’s Bible study, Laura Phelps welcomes guest Caitlin Bean to the Hope for Right Now podcast for a seven-week series: Desert Bloom, A Lenten Journey.
Lent is a time of sacrifice, preparation, and spiritual waiting—a time to prepare our hearts for Easter through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. For many of us, it has become about exterior performance, a “holy checklist” we begin on Ash Wednesday and struggle to sustain for 40 days. And preparation? Who has time for that? We are exhausted—after all, it was just Christmas!
If this is how your heart feels at the start of Lent, this series is for you—offering practical encouragement, Scripture reflections, and simple ways to experience a more meaningful, peace-filled Lent.
In today’s episode, Laura and Caitlin walk us into a new phase, the rainfall, and vulnerably share the empty wells they have run to in order to find the love that only God can give.
Open your Heart to our key Scripture.
Hosea 6:3 Let us press on to know the Lord; his going forth is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.
Open your Bible to other Scriptures referenced in this episode.
John 4:1–42: The Woman at the Well
Exodus 2:15–21
Genesis 24:14–19
Genesis 19:1–9
Romans 8:26: Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself interceded for us with sighs too deep for words.
Hosea 10:12: Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain salvation upon you.
Matthew 13:7: Other seeds fell upon thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.
Jeremiah 4:3: For this is what the LORD says to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem: “Break up your uncultivated ground, and do not sow among thorns.” (NASB)
Proverbs 28:13: He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.
Invite Him in with this episode’s questions for reflection.
What empty wells do you continue to go to, looking to quench a thirst that only God can satisfy?
Ask the Lord to plow your heart; give Him permission to remove the rocks and thorns and to reveal to you the unsurrendered areas of your heart.
Challenge: go to confession!
Show mentions.
Flourish 2026: Spiritual Motherhood, The Transforming Power of the Feminine Genius, St. Louis, MO, April 17-19, 2026. Register here.
Caitlin Bean and Laura Phelps, Desert Bloom: Discovering Unexpected Joy in the Wilderness
Catechism of the Catholic Church 2560
Transform hearts with us this Lent! Your gift to Walking with Purpose fuels our mission to bring life-changing transformation to Catholic women and girls. Donate now.
Joseph Langford, M.C., I Thirst: 40 days with Mother Teresa
Brant Pitri, Catholic Productions
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