Reflection on The Wilderness

So I just returned from my Bible study and was very encouraged and uplifted while there. This has been a frequent feeling this year as well as a feeling that I have longed to have at many times. I am not one to write often, but my heart is overflowing right now that I cannot help but write down my thoughts and that is why I have succumbed to creating a blog. We will see how this goes as life can be very busy and not offer a lot of time for reflection, but I hope to blog often. Often is a relative term and I don't know how often often will be, but I would like to at least challenge myself to take the time to reflect in life more often than I do now.

This morning at Bible study, we were reading about The Wilderness that the Israelites were in for forty years and what that was physically like. It was not the green grass and pine needle blanket ground with large trees surrounding us that we in the West think of, but instead it was a dessert. A dry, hot, rocky land that did not offer much other than suffering. However, God often uses the Wilderness to teach and strengthen His people.

We are using our pastor's book In a Word and he had this book published based on his experiences of leading groups through the wilderness of the Holy Land. He says, "without fail, the travel groups I lead always find their souls being stirred by the wilderness". Well, this year has certainly been a wilderness for Sam and me. We graduated from college in May '09 and got married four weeks later. The day that we graduated, we did not have jobs, a place to live, or any indication of where that might be. However, God has led us through this wilderness and been faithful all the way through. It has been a struggle, but as Pastor George DeJong writes in his book, "And yet, mixed in with the hardships and temptations of the wilderness, there has always been grace. God fed his people there and spoke to them there. He prepared them for life and ministry there. With every step along the difficult wilderness paths, God revealed his great heart of Love."

God is doing great things within me and it has not been easy. I am working two jobs about 60 hours a week that I am way overqualified for. I was living pay check to pay check until recently. I am bored even amongst my crazy schedule. And this is not the life that I have been told my entire life that I would have.

However, God has given me grace and loved me. His love for me is more than I can ever know and because of that, I have continued to be faithful to him. He has blessed me at this point in my life: I have a great marriage, a church that I do not want to leave, a fully furnished and decorated apartment, a working car, two jobs, a full refrigerator, no anxiety about paying the bills, great health, wonderful family and friends...the list could go on even more. His faithfulness amazes me and that has what has kept me on this journey with a mostly positive attitude.

I am not trying to say that life is easy for me, but it is a lot easier than it could be. I hope to one day look back on my time in the wilderness and smile at who God had changed me to become and to laugh at the situation not with a mocking laugh, but with a mature laugh that allows for me to appreciate where God has brought me from.

I anticipate many more wildernesses in my lifetime and as George says, "We may long for a pampered and easy life, but the truth is, God's people have always been wilderness people". I hope that I can hold onto that faithfulness and endure anything that comes about in my wilderness. And if I cannot, I have an amazing community of faith to stand beside me through it and encourage me to keep running the race that God has set for me to run.