Wilderness Valley

This past week I traveled with some friends to the Grand Canyon.

I could’ve sat and stared at it for days.

Peace settled on my spirit.

And my estrangement from the Lord diminished.

In part because I stopped working for a week, stopped striving and trying to live up to expectations.

Because I love being outdoors in raw, uncivilized beauty.

And I was in good company and felt known.

But also because the Canyon helped me—is still helping me—come to terms with this season of my life.

A wilderness valley.

Vast. Harsh. Arid. Sheer.

This is what the Canyon is. And yet it was breathtakingly beautiful.

I’m in a wilderness season, a season marked by deficits, absences, loss:

lack of vision & purpose.

loss of long-held dreams multiple times in one year.

lack of self-definition.

unfinished grief.

absence of partnership and marriage.

seeming estrangement from God.

lack of reward for doing the right thing.

The Lord keeps stripping me bare, even down to the conventions and familiar ways I know Him. I am like an infant again, learning to crawl before I can walk—who are you God? Who am I? What is it to hear your voice? Can I claim to read and understand your word? What is it like to worship you, really?

I have resisted and cried and been angry and fought with God. It’s too hard. It’s taking too long. I don’t want to be in this kind of season. How long will you keep me here? And all I sense is the Lord’s gentle hedging, an inner knowing that I’m supposed to stay in this barren place. We’re not done yet, he whispers, and it is left to me to decide whether I will surrender to this valley and pitch my camp or weary myself clawing at the walls to get out.

After the Canyon I was in Denver. I gazed at the snowy peaks—lofty, majestic, challenging—and I wanted to climb. But I was thwarted on all sides. The peaks were closed because of snowfall. I was limited in transportation and time and by the group I was with. I tried hiking a small bluff and found myself led around to a valley again. In frustration I sat down and cried. Again, I felt the Lord’s sovereign hand hedging and hedging me in. Would I accept his wisdom and covering for my life—or would I make it a prison sentence? I have chosen both, depending on the day. But the more I lean towards wanting to learn contentment in my barrenness, the more I feel our estrangement beginning to thin.

What does contentment look like in the midst of pain and fallen hope? Can I hope for things to change and be content at the same time? When Paul says he has learned to be content is every circumstance, that word content means to be possessed of unfailing strength, to be strong, to suffice, to be enough, to defend, to ward off, to be satisfied. It’s the same word used at the feeding of the five thousand, when Philip challenges Jesus and says, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be sufficient.” But then Jesus makes less than that enough. So will I, in my utter weakness, allow this God to be my unfailing strength? Even though I struggle with doubts of His goodness and choices over my life, will I allow him to suffice when I am stripped of all else? Will I choose to be satisfied in this valley?

Standing at the canyon rim, I could imagine myself down at the utter bottom of the gorge, sheer cliffs on either side, no way of seeing a path out. And yet here is the Lord with me up at the surface. He sees the pathways leading up and out. He sees the breath-taking beauty of the climb. He knows on the other side of the wilderness, a promise land awaits. Even though for now, those are not for my feet to know.

A Lament*

How long, O Lord, will my soul be sorrowful,

will my heart remain weighted with grief?

How long until you lift my head,

restoring strength to my bones?
You are there and yet I cannot find you.

Your voice remains a mystery to me.

How long will you keep yourself removed?

How long will I remain in this dark night of the soul?

You have hedged me into a wilderness on all sides.

I wander, oh how I wander.

All I have known I know no longer.

Where once I had surety, now I wrestle with doubt.

I have lost and I have lost again,

and still I feel you stripping me bare,

your lion-like claws shredding my idolatry

until I wonder what of myself remains.

Anger overcomes me;

and my heart grows weary.

My enemies came and I welcomed them;

I offered them a place and they took from me,

leaving me naked and alone.

Will the scars of their slander ever heal?

Will I never be the same?

When will my heart be restored?

Was love someone I ever knew?

Or only a stranger seeking selfish gain?

Where was your protection, Father,

when a fool came to woo my heart,

when I kissed his lips in a wooded park?

Why did you wait so long to save me?

I followed you into a den of lions;

were you standing by when they slashed my tender spirit?

Though I looked for it, did I miss the sound of your voice?

Though I diligently read, did I fail to heed your Word?

And why must my heart hold on to these ‘whys’?

What will it take for me to release my hold on them?

What will be strong enough to restore my trust in you?

When will I walk with you again in the cool of the morning,

and be satisfied by the sweetness of your voice?

I remember how I once loved you,

how I was compelled by the greatness of your love for me.

Now I wander aimlessly, wondering if my days matter.

I sit and wait in the darkness,

running my hands along a wall of unbelief,

sensing your nearness, yet unable to lay hold of you,

wanting to know who you are, who I am,

to have faith I will be made whole again.

*For scriptural laments, see Job, Lamentations, and various Psalms. For more understanding I recommend reading A Sacred Sorrow by Michael Card.