During the first few weeks after my youngest went off to preschool last fall, I experienced a complete upending of emotions. Yes, I mourned my season as a mom of little ones, but there was something more that caught me off guard, something unexpected. I found myself also (mysteriously) co-grieving the trials I had experienced during the previous ten years since I’d had our first child.
I wondered, did the years I spent in the press and fray of mothering my babies not allow the space and time necessary to fully heal from the aches and pains experienced during that time? Did those feelings, like birds flying against a window, fall fast and hard with no place to go?
During those years, my husband and I lost our five remaining grandparents and an entire generation slipped from our midst. Both of my parents and my mother-in-law went through cancer and my husband’s father was diagnosed with a rare lung disease. In the meantime, I suffered difficult physical trials, and three debilitating pregnancies (one of which ended in a heartbreaking miscarriage).
In every season, in every trial, God carried me. I fell deeper in love with Jesus during those years. I read my Bible more and clung to him with a vice-grip. I knew his unique comfort, received healing again and again, and moved hand-in-hand with him from strength to strength. But as a busy wife and mom, I also had a job to do: Moms don’t take breaks; we press on.
When I found myself alone for a few hours a week last fall, for the first time in years, everything came to the surface. God showed me that there was another degree of healing he wished to administer. There was a total unburdening of burdens that had yet to occur.
There was a deep soul-cry that needed space to howl.
And so together we went through that filing cabinet of memories, Jesus and me. We looked at the moments of unprocessed pain, the things that had not been given the time and lingering needed, the aches that needed tending. Everything that had not been touched by the Light of Jesus bubbled to the surface. God, ever tender, skimmed off the dross little by little.
I believe God brought those tiny wisps (and huge gashes) of hurt to the surface to be kissed, comforted, and sealed. God is not in the business of allowing his children to walk around burdened, weighed down, and worn. When we don’t even know we need his touch, he gives it.
The wilderness space is perfectly and lovingly
shaped by God to fit our unique needs.
Have you gone through a hard season, experienced loss, suffered heartache and trial? God uses our “wilderness times” for many purposes. Sometimes we go into the desert because we need the wide open space to heal. We need the raw starkness of the wild to face off with old demons and hand them over to God.
Do you need space to heal and let go? I encourage you to join me today in taking a few minutes alone to open your heart before God. Allow him into those aching spots, those hurting bits, those things you don’t like to think about. Time alone with Jesus greases the wheels of healing.
Our Heavenly Father is the God of all comfort. He is never done. We all need another measure of healing … and another … and another. Don’t fear the wilderness and the open spaces. Jesus will lead you through and show you unexpected and beautiful things.
Many times the desert place, the solitary place, the confused place becomes a place of healing and beauty. God makes even the desert to rejoice and blossom.
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