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 dive into Holy Week and the unfathomable love of God.

Open your Heart to our key Scripture.
John 13:1: Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end.

Open your Bible to other Scriptures referenced in this episode.
1 Corinthians 13:1–3: If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Romans 8:28: We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.
2 Corinthians 1:3–4: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
1 Corinthians 1:18: The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
Revelation 21:5: Behold, I make all things new.
Luke 7:47: Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.
Lamentations 5:21: Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old!

Invite Him in with this episode’s questions for reflection.
Have you grown in greater intimacy with the Father? Have you grown in greater self-knowledge? Have you experienced heart transformation in subtle and hidden ways? Have you discovered joy in the least likely of places?

Show mentions.
Caitlin Bean and Laura Phelps, Desert Bloom: Discovering Unexpected Joy in the Wilderness
Mel Gibson, The Passion of the Christ
Father Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen, Divine Intimacy
Enduring Word Bible Commentary

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