Our lives are full of seasons of joy and seasons of sorrow. This isn’t an unfamiliar idea to most of us, but even with this very evident reality, sometimes grief, depression, sorrow, and even wilderness show up in times when we least expect them. Sometimes we find ourselves in these desert places in seasons that we expect or feel as if they “should” be joyous occasions, or seasons filled with beauty. I found myself here as a new mom; expecting for the joy of dreams coming true, but instead walking headlong into one of the most disorienting seasons in my faith journey.

I grew up in a Christian home, became a believer at a young age, loved my church and felt called to serve God in ministry. I attended Boyce College and before I had my first child I worked as a girl’s ministry leader at a big church in southwest Florida. I found a lot of life and a lot of encouragement in that role. After that my husband and I found ourselves moving (back home, for me) to Louisville for a job opportunity he had. When we arrived I took a job working for the events office at Southern Seminary. This was another role I felt competent and affirmed in. In fact up until this point in my life I had breezily found my way into a variety of leadership opportunities that suited me. Most had felt easy or natural. I was an extrovert and a life long people-pleaser and I knew how to work that system to my advantage – so much so that it felt natural. I didn’t even realize how much I thrived off of the praise of people in my life, off of being the leader or presenting something that was excellent. That was until I stepped into the role of “mom.”

My oldest was born on September 29th, 2010. I worked up until the day he came, and I longing to jump into this new role God had called me to. I felt ready – sure that like all my past opportunities that I would thrive as a mom. Not only would I be good at it, I would excel at it, being a model for what staying home with your kids should look like. Little did I know that for the first time in my life (that I was aware of at least) I would feel like I was in the deep end with no life vest. As I began the journey of motherhood, it didn’t come as naturally to me as I had anticipated.  I was tired, I’m sure my hormones were out of whack though at the time I didn’t have the words or even the understanding of my own body to recognize this. I didn’t think “Postpartum depression” could be something I had. I had never struggled with anxiety or sadness. And I didn’t feel sad like many describe depression. I could get out of bed. I could do the tasks I had in front of me. But inside my heart and mind, I felt empty. I felt alone. I felt out of my element and not good at anything I was supposed to be doing. I feared leaving my house, everything that could go wrong ran through my mind in a cycle that kept me inside, isolated and alone. Yet I tried so hard to pull myself up by the bootstraps, to claim that life was wonderful and that I was decidedly sticking to the recommended 6 weeks at home on purpose, and not because I was drowning.

I remember crying to my mom after some months saying to her “I just don’t think my life will ever be the same again”. And her response was so full of truth, though I wasn’t ready to hear it at the time: “It probably will not ever be the same.” I thought I would eventually return to “normal” but I was actually stepping one foot in front of another into one of the longest and hardest seasons of my spiritual life and I didn’t even realize it. I would not come out the other side as the same person I was going in, but it wasn’t because I was a mom now, and it wasn’t because I just needed to get the hang of it. It was because God was doing a necessary work in my life, one I was resistant to and would not have chosen, but a work that would lead me toward Him.

I’m almost embarrassed to say that this wilderness season lasted almost 3 years. I felt detached and distant from the Lord. I knew so much truth from His words, but I had not experienced what he was like because I was so busy being in the way of my own view of him. I had always felt capable, and I had never felt needy. But all of a sudden I couldn’t get anything right. My entire rhythms of life changed and I didn’t know how to set them straight.

Instead of turning toward God’s Word and toward Him in prayer, I felt like there was a gulf between God and me. I didn’t know my way back to Him. I was consumed with guilt anytime I thought about how long it had been since I had come before him. I felt a need to make penance before he would even hear from me – to apologize for neglecting him, for being lazy in my faith. I felt like I had to work my way into His good pleasure. I couldn’t see it at the time but this was revealing so much of what God, in his kindness, was helping me to see: that my faith had been marked by self-confidence, self-reliance, and a lack of need for God for a long time. I found my motivation for faithfulness in the praise of others, and my new precious son could offer me no accolades. I believed that God saved me by grace, that Christ alone was able to rescue me from the pit my sin had placed me in, but I didn’t live like that was an ongoing truth. Instead, though I never would have said this, I lived like God rescued me once but from here on out it was up to me. But God was stripping these lies from me, and it felt like a journey to the depths of my soul.

In this season every good thing I could say about my faith, about what God had done in my life, and about what I was learning was past tense. I sank deeper into my distance from God, turning my face away from His word, from His face, and putting on a mask when I looked at His people. I faked it, I came with “good” and “right” answers, and I remained alone, isolated from God and isolated from genuine community with anyone really, even my own family. And though I found myself in the sanctuary every Sunday morning, I dreaded going and felt detached while I was there. In this season, God was slowly stripping me of any pride I had in my faith, in my knowledge and in my doing, and I didn’t like that. I came face-to-face with my own shortcomings – maybe for the first time ever. They were always there. I was just too busy to see them. I saw my own ugliness, my own hypocrisy, and I wondered if I would ever feel God’s presence again. Had I ever even been who I thought I was?

I stayed in this place for a long time; maybe because I chose to stay there alone. But God did not leave me alone even though I felt like He did. He poured out his kindness on me through the patience of my husband who saw my unhappiness and loved me in that place. He poured out his kindness through His church, many times in hidden ways, not in big or momentous occasions, but in the weekly rhythms of hearing the Word preached, of singing praises that I struggled to feel any connection to. God was washing me with the water of His Word and I was an inactive participant. I was a rock laying dormant at the bottom of a gentle stream, being smoothed over time by no effort of my own. And I loved to be the one to do the work; but in this desert season I needed to be useless, I needed to bring nothing, to have nothing to offer, because it was in this place that God showed me His amazing and powerful grace, one that required no effort from me. He let me stay there for a long time. I didn’t recognize his work, but in my absence to Him he was still present to me.

In 2014, my family moved to Sojourn East and soon after Sojourn East moved to the building we are in now. I lived all those years in this wilderness place, finding an occasional oasis, a respite of sorts, but still wandering, still feeling so far from God, and longing for relief from my journey. When women’s bible study started for the first time here I found myself signing up, in a very, “I have to do something to get out of this” attitude, an effort based attempt to find myself back in a faith I had known before. But God had a different plan. He graciously placed a few women in my life who drew me into their faith journey. Women who knew God and walked with Him intimately. Women who were comfortable with their own shortcomings and found God’s love for them in that place, not in their triumphs and successes. They modeled for me the slow and steady formation of God’s Word, and I longed for something new for the first time in a long time, not something I had had in the past, but to know God in the way that they seemed to: honestly, imperfectly, and intimately. 

As I processed this wilderness season, only once I was on the other side of it, the words of Psalm 77 captured for me what my experience had been. It gave me words to describe what I had felt and has been a great comfort to me over the years to know that many Christians have walked and will walk this same desert road and find their way back to Him.

I should cry out to God but I can’t

I don’t know what to say or how to begin

It has been so long since I have cried out to him 

or turned to his word

I must apologize, to grovel, to beg

Will you invite me into your presence again?

I have been so unfaithful

I have distanced myself from you; accidentally or purposefully

I cannot get to the bottom of my own heart

I do not deserve your face to shine on me

I can remember what your word says,

I can remember times when your presence felt near

When you called me to yourself

When you awoke my spirit to do your work

But even when I remember, guilt overtakes me

Was any of it real? Am I even who I think I am?

I am lost in the desert

“Make a case for your faith” the enemy taunts

My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; I am unable to speak

But you have spoken words of life over me

If I can muster up any strength at all

I will try again

I will turn my face back toward you

I will do the work to find you again

But you were always there; my efforts were in vain

The work you are doing in me is not what I would chose

You are uncovering in me the rough places

You are refining the impurities that have settled deep in my soul

You have been faithful to do this through all the generations

You have rescued your people from the desert places

You do the same for me

You invite me to rest in your good work

You didn’t abandon me in the wilderness

You brought me here so I can see

I can’t hide from you here

The darkness is no match for the light you shine in

Your way isn’t what I would choose

Your way was through the seas for the Israelites

It must have been terrifying for them, as it’s been for me

It was not the path I would have chosen

But you led me there gently and slowly

Bit by bit you loosened my grip on the weight 

of my self sufficiency I had carried for so long

You brought light and life through your people

Though I did not see you; you were and are and will be at work

Slowly, with small and humble steps of obedience, God began to open my eyes to see all that he had needed to strip away from me so that I could see Him and not just myself. I began to delight in His word – not because I felt I could uphold it perfectly but because I knew these words belonged to Him, who carried me in my darkest years and still invited me to be His, shortcomings and all. I found life among the women here, life around those tables in community with God’s people, and slowly I felt the warmth of God’s nearness on my face, like I never had before. 

I didn’t love the season of wilderness I walked through. I do not long to go back there again. But I am grateful for the refining work and ever-present help God was to me in that season – much of which I did not recognize or see. I have learned that all seasons of our faith journey, the ones full of vigor and joy, the ones that feel mundane and ordinary, and even the dark lonely pits we sometimes find ourselves in are not bad or good – but instead they are places to be with God. And I pray and believe that if I find myself in the wilderness again, that I will remember how God was with me and will be with me and I will be able to sit with him in that place and find rest there.