Ash Wednesday Reflection: How Lent Inspired the Story Behind Absolution

Absolution is a 4.6-star rated novel on Amazon and Goodreads exploring guilt, secrets, and the search for redemption.

Ash Wednesday always feels quieter than other days of the year. Even if life outside is moving at its usual pace, the beginning of Lent has a way of inviting a different kind of attention—inward, reflective, a little more honest than we might normally allow ourselves to be.

It’s a season built around the idea of pausing. Of looking back. Of thinking about the things we carry, the choices we’ve made, and the parts of our past that don’t always sit comfortably beside us.

Years ago, during the Lenten season, I was sitting in church when the first spark of an idea came to me. It wasn’t a full story. It wasn’t even a plot. It was more like a feeling. A quiet weight of memory, the question of what it means to live with something you can’t undo, and whether true forgiveness ever really comes easily.

That feeling stayed with me long after the season ended. Over time, it grew into what would eventually become Absolution.

At its heart, Absolution is a story about the past and the way it follows us. It’s about guilt and the things left unsaid. It’s about the long shadows of choices made years earlier, and the complicated, often painful path toward making peace with them. Writing it required me to sit with some of those same questions Lent asks us to consider: What do we hold onto? What do we try to bury? And what does it really mean to be forgiven?

I didn’t set out to write a “Lenten story,” but looking back, I can see how deeply that season shaped the emotional core of the book. The themes of reflection, redemption, and reckoning with the truth found their way into every page.

This time of year naturally brings those thoughts back again. There’s something grounding about the reminder that we’re allowed to pause and take stock. Allowed to look at where we’ve been and consider where we’re going. And sometimes, stories can help us do that. They let us explore difficult questions from a safe distance, through someone else’s journey.

If you find yourself in a reflective mood this Lent, drawn to stories that explore the weight of the past, the complexity of forgiveness, and the search for peace after long-held secrets, Absolution grew out of that very place.

It’s available on Amazon, and for Kindle Unlimited readers, it can be read there as part of your subscription.

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