Lent 2026 Series: Cultivating Healing and Wholeness in Heart, Soul, Strength, and Mind

Episode Summary

We've all heard it: the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. But what if we changed the saying — and changed our lives in the process? In this episode, Scott Stoner explores how envy and comparison quietly drain our relationships, and offers a simple but transformative reframe: the grass is greener where we water it. Drawing on 40 years as a minister and licensed marriage and family therapist, Scott unpacks what it actually looks like to tend the relationships we already have — with intention, honesty, and love.

Key Themes

• How social media amplifies the comparison trap — showing us everyone's "outsides" while we live our own "insides"
• Why envy is a natural human emotion, and how to redirect its energy
• The Living Compass core principle: whatever we pay attention to is what will grow
• What good "watering" looks like — from simple expressions of gratitude to honest, loving conversations about conflict
• The gardening metaphor: tending soil, pulling weeds, and creating conditions for new growth in relationships

Quote of the Episode

"The grass is greener where we water it."

From the Counseling Room

Scott shares a practice he uses when working with couples and families in conflict: before diving into the presenting problem, he asks them to remember what they love about each other. The shift in energy that follows is a living demonstration of the episode's central truth — what we pay attention to is what grows.

Resources Mentioned

• 📖 Lent 2026 daily readings — livingcompass.org
• 📱 Living Compass App (guided meditations by Scott and Robbin Brent) — app.livingcompass.org

Reflection Questions

• What influence, if any, does social media have on how you see your own relationships?
• Is there a relationship in your life where you have been focused more on the weeds than on what is good and life-giving?
• Choose one relationship right now that would benefit from more intentional watering. What is one specific thing you could do this week to tend it?

A Challenge from Scott

Don't just take his word for it — try it. Choose one relationship. Water it every day this week. Be creative. And see for yourself whether it's true: the grass is greener where we water it.

Lent 2026 Series: Cultivating Healing and Wholeness in Heart, Soul, Strength, and Mind

Episode Summary

What happens when the healing we pray for doesn't come? In this episode, Scott Stoner — pastor, therapist, and founder of Living Compass — explores one of the most honest and tender questions in the spiritual life. Drawing on decades of walking with people through serious illness, disability, and dying, Scott reflects on the crucial distinction between cure, healing, and wholeness, and why prayer remains transformative even when outcomes don't change.

Key Themes

• The difference between physical cure and deeper spiritual and emotional healing
• Why prayer changes us even when it doesn't change our circumstances
• Holding grief and anger honestly as part of authentic faith
• The "container" metaphor: how the spiritual life expands our capacity to hold suffering
• Walking with others through illness as its own form of healing ministry

Quote of the Episode

"Prayer doesn't always change outcomes, but it always changes us."

Featured Prayer

Scott reads the Prayer from the Book of Common Prayer (p. 461), from the Ministry to the Sick:

"This is another day, O Lord. I know not what it will bring forth, but make me ready, Lord, for whatever it may be. If I am to stand up, help me to stand bravely. If I am to sit still, help me to sit quietly. If I am to lie low, help me to do it patiently. And if I am to do nothing, let me do it gallantly. Make these words more than words, and give me the Spirit of Jesus. Amen" (BCP, p. 461).

Resources Mentioned

• 📖 Lent 2026 daily readings — livingcompass.org
• 📱 Living Compass App (guided meditations by Scott and Robbin Brent) — app.livingcompass.org

Reflection Questions

• How does the idea that "prayer doesn't always change outcomes, but it always changes us" connect with your own experience?
• Where in your life are you being invited to expand your container — your capacity to hold suffering with grace?
• How might you bring healing and wholeness to someone in your life who is suffering, even when cure is not possible?

"Do You Want to Be Made Well?" Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Podcast Lent Series: Cultivating Healing and Wholeness with All Your Heart, Soul, Strength, and Mind

In this Lent episode, host Scott Stoner reflects on one of the most striking healing stories in the Gospels — Jesus's encounter with a man who had been ill for 38 years at the pool of Bethesda (John 5:1–9). At the heart of the story is a deceptively simple question Jesus asks the man: Do you want to be made well?

Scripture John 5:1–9 — Jesus encounters a man among many who are blind, lame, and paralyzed near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem, and asks him a single, penetrating question rather than inquiring about the nature of his illness or how long he has suffered.

Key Themes

The Power of the Question — Of all the things Jesus could have asked, he asked only this. It is not a question meant to shame or judge. It is an invitation to examine our deepest desire and longing.

Getting Comfortable in Our Dysfunction — Sometimes we hold on to our dis-ease because it is familiar. Scott shares a personal story from his time as a parish pastor, when a church council member lovingly turned the question back on him after he repeatedly reported struggling with overwork and neglecting self-care. The community's gentle, loving accountability became a real turning point.

"I Have No One to Put Me in the Pool" — The man in the story believes healing can only come one specific way. Jesus gently shows him otherwise. How often do we say, "I'll be whole, I'll be at peace, I'll be able to let go — but only when this happens"? Healing often involves releasing our need to control the how and when.

Letting Go — Much of the invitation in this story is about loosening our grip — on ego, on control, on habit energy that keeps us stuck. The Divine source of healing may be closer than we think, and arriving by a path we didn't expect.

Resources Mentioned

• Living Compass daily Lent readings — available by email or as a free PDF download at livingcompass.org
• Living Compass app — available on all major app stores and at app.livingcompass.org (includes guided meditations)

Connect with Scott Scott welcomes your reflections on this episode. How does this story land for you? Where are you sitting with the question Do you want to be made well? Reach him at [email protected].

May you be safe, may you be healthy, may you be at peace, and may you live with ease.

Show Notes: Healing and Wholeness — Wrestling with God and Listening for Whispers Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Podcast | Lent 2026

In this episode, Scott Stoner reflects on two powerful biblical stories that illuminate what healing and wholeness can really look like — not always peaceful or easy, but sometimes raw, wrestling, and hard-won. Drawing on the story of Jacob wrestling with God the night before his reconciliation with his brother Esau, Scott invites us to see that God is present not only in the moments of clarity and consolation, but in the darkness, the struggle, and the dis-ease we carry. Whatever we are wrestling with — a broken relationship, a physical challenge, an emotional weight — we do not walk through it alone.

Scott also revisits the story of Elijah from 1 Kings, reminding us that God's healing voice doesn't always come in the dramatic and overwhelming moments of life. More often, it comes as a gentle whisper — through Scripture, a meaningful conversation, a moment of stillness in prayer, or a quiet sense of being led forward. The episode closes with a beautiful reflection from contributor Robbin Brent, who writes that faith is not about certainty or the absence of questions, but about the willingness to keep trusting in the deeper reality of God's healing presence, even when circumstances seem to contradict it. Wherever you are on your Lenten journey, this episode is an invitation to be still, listen for the whispers, and trust that way will open.

The full Lent 2026 devotional booklet and the option to sign up to get the Lent daily reflections for "Cultivating Healing and Wholeness" by email are available at livingcompass.org.

Opening Our Eyes: Healing Our Vision Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Podcast — Lent, Week 1

This episode explores the theme of "Opening Our Eyes" as part of the first full week of Lent, connected to the daily devotional booklet Cultivating Wholeness and Healing with All Your Heart, Soul, Strength, and Mind.

Scott reflects on the many healing stories in the Gospels involving sight, noting that healing doesn't always happen all at once. Drawing on the story of the blind man in Mark 8 — who is healed progressively, first seeing blurrily and then fully — Scott invites listeners to recognize that moving from blindness to blurry is still grace, still progress.

He then explores the different kinds of "blindness" Jesus addresses beyond physical sight — spiritual, emotional, and relational — and how each can leave us seeing life less clearly and with less love and hope than we'd like. Whether it's a faith stuck at an early stage of development, emotions we've numbed to protect ourselves, or patterns of "othering" people in our relationships, these forms of blurriness are not causes for shame but invitations to healing.

Scott closes with the image of Bartimaeus crying out, "My teacher, let me see again" — reminding us that Jesus is in the business of opening eyes, and that Lent is a season to nurture and restore our vision in all its dimensions.

Free PDF of the devotional booklet and daily email reflections available at livingcompass.org. Contact Scott at [email protected].

Host: Scott Stoner, Episcopal pastor and licensed marriage and family therapist

Episode Summary

Recorded the day before Ash Wednesday, this introductory episode launches the Lenten podcast series centered on the theme Cultivating Healing and Wholeness with All Your Heart, Soul, Strength, and Mind. Scott reflects on what it means to tend to our whole selves during the 47 days of Lent, drawing on his 40 years of experience as pastor and therapist.

Key Themes

Scott opens with a simple but powerful question: When was the last time someone genuinely asked how you're doing? He invites listeners to treat Lent as an annual spiritual check-up — an unhurried season to reflect on body, mind, heart, and soul. Healing, he suggests, is less like a lightning bolt and more like tending a fire: patient, gentle, and attentive. The Ash Wednesday words "Remember that you are dust" are framed not as shame but as an invitation to humility and openness.

He also introduces the Living Compass model of well-being — four quadrants (Heart, Soul, Strength, Mind) with eight dimensions of wellness — and reminds listeners that wellness begins with "we."

Resources Mentioned

• Daily readings booklet — PDF download or daily emails available at livingcompass.org
• Living Compass App — search "Living Compass" in your app store or visit app.livingcompass.org; includes guided Lenten meditations; free trial for one year, then $10/year
• Spanish-language content — daily reflections by Estela Lopez and Pedro Lopez (Bruja La De Vida), PDF available at livingcompass.org and posted daily on the Bruja La De Vida Facebook page

During This Series

Two new podcast episodes will be released each week throughout Lent.

Blessings on your Lenten journey.

In this Valentine's Day episode, Scott reflects on the Buddhist monks who recently completed their 2,300-mile peace walk to Washington, D.C., drawing connections between walking meditation, pilgrimage, and the true nature of love. He explores how love is primarily a decision and practice rather than just a feeling, using 1 Corinthians 13 as a guide to understand love as patience, kindness, and endurance. Scott shares insights from his retreats at Magnolia Grove Monastery in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh, emphasizing that sustaining long-term relationships—whether marriages, friendships, or commitments to justice—requires showing up one step at a time, even when feelings waver. This episode reframes Valentine's Day as an opportunity to practice love as a sustained commitment rather than momentary emotion.

Many of the people Scott works with as a coach and therapist are reporting that they are experiencing compassion fatigue. In this episode, he talks about what compassion fatigue is and how to address it.

In this episode, Scott shares a "check-in" process he often uses with individuals, couples, and organizations he works with, called the "internal weather report." He also shares how, in the midst of the deep freeze hitting Wisconsin, where he lives, as well as much of the rest of the country, the universal wish that people extend to one another is "stay warm." What would it mean for us to "stay warm" emotionally and spiritually in the midst of the many storms happening around us today?

Sometimes an encounter changes us so deeply that we cannot return the same way we came. When has that been true for you? The story of the Wise Men being warned not to go back to Herod, but to go home by a different way after they encounter the Christ child, is a metaphor for how when we encounter the Divine, we often choose to move forward in a new way.