A Clearing in the Wilderness

The captivating plot of a love story stirs longings in me, hiding out,  I didn't even know they were there. Unassumingly, picking up a book or pressing play, and suddenly the colors change, my surroundings are no longer comfortable, and a deep, unrelenting ache. 

In Bridges of Madison County, Francesca Johnson (Meryl Steep) is tending to her chores, her predictable farm life, and  her family.  Robert Kincaid enters her small world, and Francesca is awakened to something she never knew. And as love typically behaves, it forces a risk to be taken  if your desire is to intersect with it. 

As a 20 year old, I was living a youthful, whimsical life that could be considered carefree (and careless)  from the outside. Even so, a middle aged woman,  trapped in a life that was meant for more, resonated with me. Bridges of Madison County was a repeated feature circulating in my DVD player. 

Meryl Streep's character and I had little in common, but our conclusions were in sync.  We needed to be awakened to our heart's desire. I needed to be jolted into dreaming beyond my reality, just as she did.  Sometimes, though, the catalysts in our lives, are just that. They are there to prompt an event or change, but they themselves are not the event.

What if Sleeping Beauty needed to be woken up by the prince, but that did not determine the direction her life was to take? What if we wrestled with our yearnings, longings, and desires a little longer to determine that most of what is offered to fill us is counterfeit. Actually, all that is offered to fulfil us is counterfeit. It's when we are filled to the brim that accomplishments, relationships, and goals fall in their rightful place. 

Thomas Chalmers writes "the only way to break the hold of a beautiful object on the soul is to show it an object more beautiful."

Thrown off course by my own unsteadiness, my loneliness, my lacking, to go about life in the way that I was called. The Holy Spirt dared me to dream large, but I chose small, the road more traveled. And just as Israel asked for a king, I also wanted to be steered and anchored by someone else, and I rejected being set apart.  1 Samuel  Chapter 8

Now, on the brink of 40, the age that we all thought was so old. Expecting to be accomplished, fulfilled, settled... riding the waves of goals being met, and dreams coming true. 

And yet (deep sigh) here I am. Feeling as though, I am just now getting it. Emerging from a fog, finally viewing a clearing in the wilderness, on the edge of promise. A return to my youth...back to lonely, unsteady, and lacking,  desperately wanting to be steered and anchored and to belong. 

Up to this point....

God's Word was my handbook, followed up with wise counsel. Parenting books and Google gave me the rest of the answers. Marriage counseling, marriage mentors, marriage books, programs, seminars, and retreats were on rotation. Recovery advice and first hand accounts of healing and restoration was music to my ears. Journals and journals of lament and prayer.  I did all the necessary research and tried my best. 

Yet, here I am humbled and awakened. Undoing all that I boasted in knowing and living out. I am hopeful that the Holy Spirit used me in all those years of confidence, arrogance, and being an expert on all the things. But I was not honest, especially to myself. What good was preaching healing, without experiencing it myself? 

Regret does not plague me as I recall and remember the journey. Wisdom from others, the direction, and  the choices propelled me forward. There now exists the possibility of being used so much more in my nothingness, in my emptying out.   

Springing forth is a humble boldness. Idolizing my dreams, sinking into temptation, desiring more, the pride in my own effort needed to be excavated . The tension of accepting my utter defeat, and the realization that overwhelming, undeserved grace exists for me too. 

 And it feels weird! It's the equivalent of learning something manually, but the automatic, the simpler way, does not feel right, and at first, it's definitely not easier. 

It has been 

asking questions I once knew the answer to

risking doing it wrong

a wonkiness I liken to those weird inflatables at an event

learning from those younger than me (doing young adulthood differently than I did)

learning from those I have thought to be less than me 

more intentional

all together strange

returning to the basics of the Gospel

It's going through Galatians and chastising myself  for once again trying to do it my way . Cycling through rebellion, discipline, repentance, and restoration  Asking Julie, Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? (Galatians 3:3)

My soul is still whisked away with the love story...those that exist in fiction and those that are happening around me. I accept the invitation, the dare to dream, the risk.  I am awakened to abounding in grace (anchored), satisfying  my soul with manna (steered), and abiding in true love (belonging). 

Acts 13:18-19 And for about forty years he put up with them in the wilderness. And after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance. 

 Matthew 11:29, 30 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”