Within God’s Grace: Sacred Circle Reflection
A Reflection by Alexandra Sutarjo
There was a time when my body felt like an ally. I jogged and walked five kilometers most days, trusting the quiet strength beneath me. Movement felt like freedom. My legs carried me faithfully, and I assumed they always would.
Then the unraveling began.
It started as tightness in my left calf. I dismissed it as overuse. I stretched more, pushed through. But the tightness did not ease. It spread. The pain sharpened. My leg began to brace as if against danger I could not see.
MRIs. Specialists. Nerve tests. Each appointment carried hope that someone would name the problem. Everything looked “normal,” they said, aside from some osteoarthritis—yet even they admitted my symptoms were unusual for osteoarthritis.
Normal is a cruel word when every step burns.
The pain crescendoed until I found myself in a wheelchair—a dependence I never envisioned. The woman who once moved freely now needed help to cross a room. Beneath the physical pain, anxiety took root—a constant, low hum of alarm that would not quiet.
As my body weakened, deeper questions surfaced—questions about my self-worth, my strength, and what I believed God expected of me.
Our society praises performance: do more, be more, prove more. Independence is admired. Control is rewarded. Quietly, we begin to assume God works the same way—that His love depends on our steadiness, our effort, our ability to hold everything together.
Yet Scripture tells a different story.
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).
We do not live by our own strength, but within God’s grace.
Lent has a way of slowing us down—sometimes by invitation, sometimes by necessity. In a world that prizes self-sufficiency, it leads us to face our limits and our dependence. I never grasped how much I trusted my own strength until it failed me.
Nineteen months after my surgery, I expected healing to be linear. The structural issue had been addressed. I assumed my strength would steadily return, and walking would feel natural again. Yet my leg still guarded itself. My body remembered what the scans could not show. It remembered pain. It remembered fear. And so it braced.
Lent reveals where we brace.
We tighten against uncertainty. We prepare for impact. We try to manage outcomes we cannot control. I believed that if I worked harder—stretched longer, strengthened more, prayed more fervently—I could reclaim what I had lost.
But guarding cannot be forced into surrender.
In my Catholic tradition, on Ash Wednesday, we are marked with ash and truth: “Remember that you are dust…” (Genesis 3:19). These words do not shame us; they ground us. We are finite, and God is faithful. We are limited, and God’s grace is not.
Grace is not a backup plan—it is the foundation of our faith, meeting today’s worries with fresh mercy and giving strength for today alone.
Some of us are healing. Some are waiting. Some are quietly faithful in ways no one sees. Wherever you stand this Lent, you are not beyond God’s reach; you are held within His grace.
God told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). I once heard that verse as comfort. Now I hear it as an invitation—to stop fighting my limits and trust God within them.
Healing does not have to be swift to be real. Anxiety does not cancel faith. Slowness is not falling behind.
Living within God’s grace does not erase hardship—it means we no longer bear it alone. It frees us to slow without shame and to remember that our worth rests not in achievement, but in being loved by Christ.
These days, I can walk about two miles, though most of that distance happens quietly in and around my own home. I make slow circuits, learning again to trust my leg. Some steps still guard. Some ache. Some feel uncertain. I take them anyway.
In these small laps through familiar surroundings, Lent is teaching me that surrender is not the same as giving up. I am learning to surrender my timetable, my need to control healing, and my habit of measuring my worth by strength.
Jesus did not rush past suffering on the way to the cross. He entered it fully, trusting the Father step by step. In Gethsemane He prayed, “Not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). His path was marked not by control, but by trust.
Healing does not have to be fast to be faithful. Anxiety does not disqualify trust. Slowness does not mean I am behind.
I am still tempted to compare myself with who I used to be and to hurry healing along. Yet Lent keeps whispering: Stay present. Receive today. Trust the next step.
Lent begins with ashes on our foreheads—a reminder that we are fragile and not in control. Yet from dust God breathed life. Into weakness Christ entered. Through surrender, resurrection dawns — and hope rises quietly, even here, before healing is complete.
So I keep walking, slowly and imperfectly, trusting that God meets me in each small step, in each moment of fear, turns toward faith. And if resurrection begins anywhere, perhaps it begins here — in the small, faithful steps; sustained by mercy, accompanied by love, and taken in grace, one quiet circuit at a time.
We want to hear from you.
Alexandra says, “Lent is teaching me that surrender is not the same as giving up. I am learning to surrender my timetable, my need to control healing, and my habit of measuring my worth by strength.”
What do you think God wants you to recognize during this Lenten season? (Scroll down to comment) How has her story touched you?
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Did this reflection resonate with you?
We share the month’s theme in Sacred Circles every month. Come to one or come to all. New people are always welcome.