Ouch
Every year, Catholics around the world prepare for the celebration of Easter through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. This season is called Lent, and each year I choose a prayer program app to guide me through the journey. This year, I participated in the “Crux” program through Ascension Press. This daily devotional included scripture readings and written and video reflections from Fr. Columba Jordan, a member of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal.
There are common themes each Lent, and since my word for 2026 is temperance, the lessons in this reflection really hit home. Fr. Columba challenged us to get comfortable with being uncomfortable—to stretch beyond our perceived limits for the sake of real growth. Sacrifice. He asked me to feel the ouch. The ouch is exactly what I’ve spent most of my life trying to avoid.
It was also not a coincidence that we attended a marriage retreat during this time. We’ve been invited to this annual event for several years, and yet we’ve never gone. Sometimes there was a scheduling conflict, but if I’m honest, sometimes we didn’t want to. When the invitation came again this year (our friends are persistent), I realized I had run out of excuses, so we signed up. And then I began to dread it.
Per usual, I made the whole experience much worse in my mind than it actually was. I imagined the worst-case scenario—awkward conversations with strangers, forced vulnerability, long, uncomfortable hours—and none of that ever happened. In fact, we had a great time. We enjoyed the experience and learned a lot. I created my own discomfort leading up to the retreat, but the weekend itself was a welcome reprieve.
And that’s the point I don’t want to miss: the ouch I’m called to lean into is rarely the one I invent ahead of time. It’s not the anxiety, the dread, or the stories I tell myself to avoid doing something hard. The real ouch—the one that actually changes me—comes when I show up anyway, when I say yes, when I stop managing my comfort and allow God to do something with my willingness.
Temperance, for me, isn’t just about moderation. It’s about restraint from my instinct to avoid, control, or opt out. It’s choosing to step into the thing I’d rather sidestep, trusting there’s something on the other side worth having.
This Lent, I’m learning that growth doesn’t come from avoiding discomfort—it comes from walking straight into it. And more often than not, it’s not nearly as bad as I thought.
