In The Wilderness.

Samantha
Samantha
Jul 28, 2017 · 5 min read

(28th July 2016)

I finally did it. On Saturday night I finally made the decision to leave the church I’ve been attending. The decision came after much thought, discussions with other people, and prayer.

In some ways it is a relief. I feel relieved to not have to go through the dread I felt through attending, and I feel a sense of freedom and hope for the future.

But in another way it is strange. I feel lost. And very much alone.

I had hoped to go to the new church on Sunday morning, but I haven’t been well at all, and I’m still not. I don’t know if it has been all of the stress lately, but my stomach has been quite upset, and I feel physically and mentally exhausted. I feel like I just want to sleep for about a week.

So I didn’t go. But by Sunday evening I had improved somewhat, so I went to another church close to where I live for the evening service. I have been there before on a couple of occasions. It is a big, traditional church, and only a few people go to the evening service.

I always love the sermons, regardless of which church I am at, and this one was no different. It also really spoke to me.

The minister briefly mentioned the Israelites and the time they spent in the wilderness, and I thought about the whole account. God used Moses to rescue the Israelites, to bring them out of Egypt, where they had been slaves and ill-treated. God promised to lead them to a better land. But after a while the Israelites started to complain, saying they wished they were back in Egypt, as some things were better there (like the food). They even started to discuss going back to Egypt!

It seems unbelievable. I mean, they were slaves there. Did they really want to go back to that oppression?

But at the same time, perhaps they were afraid, uncertain about the future, and not sure whether they could trust God. Even though things had been bad in Egypt, they had relative security there, a certain predictability. It was familiar to them.

I started to think about my own situation now, and how I feel like I have been taken out of Egypt (the old church), and am now in the wilderness. I feel lost, unsure, uncertain, and alone. I am trusting God to lead me and bring me forward, but it can feel uncomfortable at times.

I started to think that I would need to be careful not to become like the Israelites, wanting to turn around and go back. The temptations are there, and I know more may come. Okay, I found it awful at that church, but at least I could be around people. It is familiar. And what if I bump into people from the church? I have little doubt that there will be pressure from them to go back.

So I have been asking God to help me not look back, but to keep looking forward and to trust him. I don’t want to go back to what I’ve come out of. Even though it may be uncomfortable in the wilderness, I want to keep moving forward and pressing on.

Another thing which spoke to me during the sermon was when the minister started to talk about gardens, and how both plants and weeds grow. Obviously, we need to get rid of the weeds we don’t want, and nurture and nourish the plants we do want.

He then applied that principle to things like relationships, emotions, thoughts, etc. In a way, we have to choose what we want to grow in the garden of our lives. What we feed is what will grow.

I found that really useful. I have to admit that I am struggling in regards to how I feel about myself. Because of things which were said to me at the last church, I feel like I should just become a hermit, hide myself away from everyone and be alone. This is making me feel hesitant about moving forward. I am worried I will experience the same things again. I am worried that I will not be accepted somewhere new. I am worried I will be rejected and viewed as a problem all over again.

I also sometimes experience memories of things, or I start thinking about things which hurt me, and that causes me to feel negative and distressed. Or I might start to dwell on thoughts about somebody I miss, and I then feel sad and like I want to go back. That sort of thing.

I know that if I focus on those things, they will grow. Do I want them? If they were plants, and my life is a garden, do I want them there? No, I don’t.

So I need to weed them out. I need to stop focusing on them. Of course the thoughts and feelings will come up at times, but I know I can choose to say “no” to them and to focus on something else, something more positive and constructive. I know I can’t let them hold me back and choke whatever new life may be trying to grow.

But I feel so alone and vulnerable. And also, by coming away from that church, I am leaving somebody who had once again become like a father-figure to me (yes, it had happened again, which is very much not what I wanted). Although this person had been pulling away from me for a while (causing me to feel rejected and abandoned all over again), I feel like I have once again lost that connection which is so important to me, and it is devastating.

But the other day, when I was feeling weary and just opened up my Bible at random, I believe God spoke to me through a couple of verses from Psalm 68, which I just came across. It is verses 5 and 6. It says,

“A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows,
Is God in His holy habitation.
God sets the solitary in families;
He brings out those who are bound into prosperity;
But the rebellious dwell in a dry land.”

Those verses really meant a lot to me, and I am holding on to them right now. I also noticed that just before that, in verse 4, it says, “Extol Him who rides on the clouds.” That reminded me of the dream I had recently, where I saw the man standing on the clouds. It is all confirmation to me that God is with me and is speaking to me. It is very comforting.

So right now I am concentrating on getting closer to God and strengthening my relationship with him, which is really great. I always find that it is at times like this, when I feel lost and alone, that I am forced to lean on God even more, and I subsequently get closer to him.

I am trusting God to lead me forward, in his own way and timing. In the meantime, I am trying to keep moving forward and not look back. I’ll get through this wilderness.

Samantha

Written by

Samantha

Hello, my name is Samantha. I decided to start this journal so I have somewhere to store my writings about God, faith, life, and my thoughts and feelings.

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