HOW TO JOURNEY THROUGH YOUR SPIRITUAL WILDERNESS | EP 53

[DAWN GABRIEL]
Hi, I’m Dawn Gabriel, your host of Faith Fringes podcast, recording live from Castle Rock, Colorado. I am a licensed professional counselor, owner of a counseling center and a sacred space holder for fellow therapists. This podcast is for those who want to explore more than the traditional norms of the Christian culture. I create intentional space to explore your own spiritual path, a space that allows doubt, questions and curiosity without the judgment or shame, a place to hear another story and dive deeper into how to have a genuine connection with God.

For my fellow therapist, listening, I will often pull back the curtain of our layered inner world that comes with our profession. I bring an authentic and experienced way to engage your spiritual journey in order to connect you with your deepest values for true renewal and soul care. But really this podcast is for anyone listening who’s desiring a deeper and genuine connection with God. For those of you wanting to engage your spirituality in new ways, Faith Fringes is for you. Welcome to the podcast.

Hello, welcome back. This is your host, Dawn Gabriel with faith bridges podcasts. Today, I am coming to you with a solo episode, just me and some of my thoughts and just some honest musings, I would say, of what’s been going on in the last few weeks. As some of you know, as you follow me, you may have heard me talk at the Faith in Practice conference, and you may have heard me on social media, or you maybe are part of my email course; either way you know that some fun things are going on in my life. But, it’s not always what’s about on social media and it’s not always what we show. There are things that go on in our lives behind the scenes and to be honest, like one of my personality flaws, my defense mechanism is that I get over involved in things, whether it’s social things or friend things or anything, really. I get really involved in some fun things when I am trying to avoid some deeper stirrings within my heart and within my soul.

I’ve been reflecting on that because it caught up to me this weekend. This weekend that I’m recording is actually Mother’s Day weekend. It’s always hard for me. For those of you who have listened or know me personally, you know that my mom passed away eight years ago on the weekend of Mother’s Day. So it’s like a double whammy. It’s been eight years and those of you who’ve journeyed in grief know that it doesn’t mean grief gets any easier. It means you just get used to living with that hole in your heart. So I’m not in the day to day grief anymore where I’m like a zombie walking through a cloud like I was the first year after my mom passed, but it still doesn’t mean I don’t miss her and I don’t get ambushed sometimes with grief.

It’s like, I always know it’s coming on Mother’s Day, but this year, the way it lined up, as you know, Mother’s Day, it’s always different where it falls on the calendar. But the actual date is the actual day on the anniversary of my mom’s passing. So I tried to avoid it. It’s like I knew it was coming. I wasn’t like seriously avoiding it, I just was like, okay, it’s another year. But it’s always a mixed bag because on the other hand I want to celebrate my motherhood. I have two amazing boys and we had a lovely day. So I made sure the day was relaxed. My boys brought me breakfast in bed and they actually made a cute little scavenger hunt for me that I had to walk all around the house guessing clues until I could find my Mother’s Day cards.

They brought me flowers. We went out to an awesome Italian restaurant. So there was a bunch of amazing things and it was really chill. My husband is so gracious to know that I’m really, I get mixed feelings on that day and it’s not over planned. We just need to be chill about it. So it was just really cool but I wanted to celebrate me being a mom and celebrate with my boys and I did that on Sunday. But that doesn’t mean, there were times around that day, like different like on Monday or on Saturday that it more hit me and I let the grief come and just really missing my mom.

So part of that also made me realize how, one of my major pillars of this podcast is just acknowledging that pain and grief and the messiness of life, how that can bring us closer to God if we let it. It also can allow sometimes of doubt and fear and anger towards God and moving away from Him. I think I’m not really there right now. I’m not in the angry, moving away from God phase. I’m more in the drawing close to Him phase and needing Him to be close to me. So that’s what I wanted to talk about today, is that path in that where we’re at. It’s interesting as I was hiking today, I try to do a walk or a hike in the morning before I go to work, just to clear my head and it’s for me, one of my spiritual practices that intentionally draws me closer to God. Sometimes I listen to podcasts to help, sometimes I just do it by myself without podcasts.

Today I chose to listen to a podcast and it was actually the Evolving Faith podcast that Sarah Basil, that’s how I found it, through Sarah Basil, but it’s her and John Chill, the co-host with her. They do a lovely job. It’s actually, they’re launching their second season of the podcast and it just came out and I’m super excited. I hadn’t heard of it before, but I follow Sarah Basil on Instagram and she left a video about it. So I went over and listened. Man, this was an amazing episode that just came out this week, which is, so I’m recording on May 10th. Not sure when this will go live, but if you want to look up their May 10th podcast, the one that just dropped around then it was awesome. It had Barbara Brown Taylor speaking at a conference they did actually in Denver, the Evolving Faith Conference in 2019.

It was talking about wilderness and she was talking about how sometimes when people think of wilderness, they think of like a state park that they’re in, that there’s rangers around and they can still enjoy lunch and hikes with a lot of people around. She was saying, if it doesn’t, if it’s not threatening to kill you, it’s not really wilderness. She was likening that to when our soul goes through a wilderness time and our faith goes through wilderness time. I’m sure you’ve heard the scripture, like he who loses his faith will find it. She put that into the wilderness, like you have to doubt, you have to question and come to the edge and there needs to be some death involved. And this doesn’t have to be physical death. It could be like, like I in experiencing a death in the family, like me losing my mom, but it could also be like an emotional death, like a death to what we clinging to most in life that we think will give us life.

I’ve really been pondering that and I want you to also think of that what in your life are you holding so strongly to, and it feels like life, but in reality, it’s not because it’s the illusion of life. It’s the illusion of happiness, illusion of strength. We hold onto it, it could be our worth in our calling even and what our purpose is and feeling like we have to find that out and we have to clinging to that. For some of us, it could be our work also wrapped up in our purpose and worth, or maybe our being a parent or being a therapist for me. I mean, at work or like who we are, what this friend thinks of us, what our spouse thinks of us. It could be any of those things. It could be our volunteer, it could be food, it really could be anything. Even our health.

I feel like I’m, there’s just a lot of sadness right now that I’m seeing in my friend’s life and some health issues and just work stuff going on and I’m just feeling a lot of intensity and sadness. In fact, my husband and I are going through something right now, not in our marriage, but more in our personal lives. There’s something really deep going on that’s really threatening some of our, what we hold onto as we think is life. We’ve been seeking spiritual guidance and counseling around it. It’s been so helpful to have someone journey alongside us during that time. I can’t share details of what we’re going on, you know I share a lot of details on here, but I will share maybe later when things are different, but just know that we are in a deep struggle with a couple things that we are trying to figure out.

It’s really put me in this place that I wanted to share with you and think through, and just talk through what is going on and how do we process when we are in a wilderness, so to speak? So some of you may be struggling with cancer, that’s a wilderness. Some of you may be struggling with a relationship that you don’t have anymore, and that feels like wilderness. Or grief. It could be anything or, yes, just imagine like, what is it that feels like wilderness right now? That’s why it was so good to hear the Evolving Faith podcast, with Barbara Brown Taylor talking on wilderness. It really helped me because she did. She talked about, we need to get to those, like I say, the edges of our faith, the fringes of our faith, the whole podcast name, it’s Faith Fringes. We have to get to those edges to be brought to a place where we can learn and grow more.

So I’ve been on wilderness trips where there’s nothing, like we just have the backpack on our back and everything I need for 10 days is in there. It’s scary. We don’t know where we’re staying. We don’t know. I mean, we have our food, but it’s scary and it’s so fascinating. Every time I come back from a trip like that, it was very simplistic. Life was very simple and I realized how much I didn’t need in my current life. That’s what being in the wilderness actually does for people is realizing what’s really important and what is really needed that and is life giving and what is unnecessary. I think sometimes when we go through those struggles it melts away the things that are not important.

I can also think of, we all just have come through a pandemic and are still feeling the effects. I feel like that was a time to really see what’s important, what isn’t. Even though it was chaos and scary it also brought to light like this is what is important to me. For me realizing, like my schedule, I had to change it and my kids and my family and saying no to things. It felt good to say, no, we had to say no to a lot of things. It felt good to have that slow down pace and realizing now that we’re able to say yes to a lot of things that I still need to slow the pace down at times. That’s really important is to not say yes and get involved in a million things because that’s not my true, that I don’t need that for my real true, authentic self and connecting on a spiritual level that is important to me.

So as I’m looking at that, I actually want to share another thing that goes along with it, the wilderness, and it’s what it was actually, my husband and I went to our spiritual director/counselor and he shared with us a passage. It’s interesting, he said he doesn’t share this with a lot of people because there, and so I want to say that too, as I’m going to read this, if you are in the, like the brand new midst of a struggle or in the midst of wilderness, and you’re still feeling really low and your faith is, like you’re more new to deconstructing your faith, this might not be a good passage for you. I just want to say that, like it’s not for everyone and that’s totally fine. But for me it was so life giving and it was very clarifying and I was able to be grounded. So I thought I have to this on the podcast. It’s what I’ve been clinging today and this week actually.

I’m going to read it first and it’s going to sound random but then I’ll break it apart for you. So take a minute. It’s in Isaiah 50:10-11. It says, who among you fears the Lord and obeys the word of a servant? Let the one who walks in the dark, who has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on their God. But now all you who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches, go walk in the light of your fires and of the torches you have set ablaze. This is what you shall receive from my hand. You will lie down in torment. So I’m curious, how does that hit you today? For some, it might be upsetting, for others, you might need to read it again. For me, let’s break it down a little bit.

When you first hear the word dark, let one who walks in the dark, who has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on their God, so I want you to think for a moment, like, what does darkness mean here? What do you think when you hear the word darkness? For me, when I first saw that, I mean, it was not literal darkness at first. It was the darkness of the soul, just feeling lost, like wilderness darkness of confusion, and just weirdness and that bone tired exhaustion of the soul. Do any of what I’m talking about? That’s what I thought and the dark.

Then another thing I thought of is walking in the dark, like on this earth sometimes, like I get sick of hearing all the sad things and I can’t watch the news. I don’t want to hear one more client story of trauma. I’ve had enough. To me that feels dark. Sometimes my role and my job is too dark I don’t want to hear anymore. My husband works in law enforcement. He works in a jail. That feels very dark. So, as we’re looking at darkness, it could mean different things, but I want you to pause for a second and I want you to think, imagine yourself dropped into a forest, a dark forest in the middle of the night with no flashlight.

You don’t know where you are. It’s pitch dark. There’s no sun there. I mean, there’s no moon, there’s no stars. What would you feel? For me, my heart starts racing. I have anxiety. I’m angry at who dropped me here. I’m starting to doubt myself. I am freaking out. Panic. Then I’ve been abandoned, abandonment. Think about that. That is what they’re talking about in this passage, they’re talking about that darkness. But here’s the thing. So i what that means is when you are going through a wilderness of your soul in a dark moment, it’s okay to feel those things. That is legit. That’s what really switched me for this verse is okay, I’m feeling some anxiety. I am feeling some grief. I am feeling some hard stuff right now that Chris and I are going through and guess what, that’s okay.

Trust in the name of the Lord and rely on God. Okay, what the heck does that mean? It doesn’t mean, and here’s the thing, I am a torch lighter. I love lighting a torch. I love fixing things. I love helping others see the way. I even light a torch to show people how to go to God. That is one of my purposes and passionate. But I’m hearing here in this passage, but now all you who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches, go walk in the light of your fires and of all the torches you have set a blaze, but this is what you shall receive from me. This is God talking. You will lie down in torment. What the heck does that mean?

To me as I was sitting with this verse and contemplating it, what that means is you guys, we have to surrender control. We have to sometimes let go of all the stuff we know and not try to make it fixed and work. We have to surrender. What does that look like to trust and rely on the name of God, of who He says He is and who He promises us to be? What does that look like? For me it doesn’t mean some of it, I’m not talking prosperity gospel here. Like you’re still feeling panicked. You’re still lost. You’re still freaking out. This could be depression. This could be grief. This could be anxiety. It could be trauma. There’s still stuff going on. Like I said, if someone is in the midst of that right now, like on severe levels of that, this might not be the verse to share but for me, it was so helpful to realize I have to let go of control.

I have to stop trying to light all my torches myself. This is not God’s saying you can do that, but you will be tormented because it’s not life. It’s not life giving. Because where is true life found and where is true freedom found? This is what we talk about and the true spirituality, the spiritual part of our souls, that is where a true life is found. I mean, sure, we can find happiness and other stuff in some of the things we think is life, but ultimately those things can be destroyed, unfortunately. Those things can be taken from us. Where are we left?

Sorry. Now I feel like I’m being super dark and deep, but for me, what this is, it’s like a shifting, it’s a paradigm shift of, okay, God, I can’t do this alone. I need spiritual help. I need to rely on God. I can’t light my torch. If I do, I will burn out, myself will burn out. The torch will burn out. It’s not like a true light. So leaning on God and just sometimes into the mess, it doesn’t mean he’s going to take the mess away. I can’t promise that, but it does mean He’s with us in the mess. It’s like being in a dark forest and saying, okay, I trust that He’s here leading me. I feel His presence. I’m going to walk in that. It’s hard. I feel like this is for people who have a deep faith and their faith has already been tested or you’re in the middle of it being tested and going internally and really feeling and experiencing God in a deep way of He promises, He will never leave us.

He will never, we will never be alone. He has given us the spirit to live within us. Sometimes I forget that I don’t tap into that. I don’t ignite that flame. I just say I got it from here, God. I got it. I’m going to light my torch. So that’s where I’m at today. That’s what I wanted to share with you is, are you in darkness right now? Are you in the forest and it’s pitch dark? How many times do you feel like lighting your own lighting, a torch, lighting the flame in and going that way? I’m sure you are really good at it. I’m good at it. I’m good at leading the way too with others, but yet where is God calling you to put the torch down and trust Him and to trust that He is good?

That doesn’t mean things are going to work out and things are going to be safe, but that His way is the way of life. So, even though we can’t understand it, does that mean my suffering and my grief, like specifically talking about my mom, does that mean it makes it all worth it? No, it doesn’t make sense. I still would rather have my mom. It doesn’t mean like, that means everything’s okay. No, it means I am still going to use that to cling to God and I think He is there with me in the grief. I think He is also sad with me that I miss her and wish she was here in my journey of motherhood to talk with her about it.

So that’s what I’m trying to say is, again, it’s messy. I don’t have perfect answers, but I do know it gives me hope and it gives me a calm, grounding space to land on that. I’ve been trying to light torches in this dark forest and that is not the way. I need to rely on God more. I need to trust that He’s going to show the way and it does, it’s like the upside down kingdom, like we do not understand, this does not make sense. So I ask you today, where are you feeling like, I feel like I’m supposed to go this way, but it makes no sense, but I feel God nudging me that way. I feel Him wanting to bring me to that place.

I am reminded of like the desert fathers and mothers, the ancient, spiritual formation traditions of like the detaching, like you go into the wilderness or the desert to detach from something so that you can attach to God. That is why there’s so many stories in script and the scriptures about that, of just God calling us into the wilderness so that he can work with us there. In fact, I can’t remember what Bible verse this is, but there’s one of my favorite ones, it’s saying He draws her into the valley of so he can speak tenderly there and it speak words of hope.

It doesn’t make sense. No one wants to live in a desert in the wilderness. No one wants to be up close to the fringes of their faith and the edges and their discomfort but yet that’s where God can meet us sometimes deeply. So I’d like to read this, it’s like a poem or a prayer. It’s based on the first principle and foundation of St. Ignatius of Loyola. It’s paraphrased by Jacqueline Bergen and Marie. I’m going to read it. So take some time to pull over, relax be in a place where you can close your eyes and really let this sink in. This is how we’ll close today. We’ll have some music and playing afterwards for a while so that you can just ponder some of these words and just ponder, where is God speaking to me in my wilderness? Or where is he speaking to me in a dark forest with no light? How can He be the light and how can I just let go of my need and my desire to light my own touch and lead the way to try to figure out my own touch flame?

Let’s go ahead and slow down and read this. Lord, my God, when your love spilled over into creation, you thought of me. I am from love of love for love. Let my heart, oh, God always recognize, cherish and enjoy your goodness and all of creation. Direct all that is me towards your praise. Teach me reverence for every person, all things. Energize me in your service. Lord, God may nothing ever distract me from your love, neither health nor sickness, wealth nor poverty, honor nor dishonor, long life or short life. May I never seek nor choose to be other than you intend or wish.

Thank you for listening today to the Faith Fringes podcast. For those of you wanting to take a deeper dive into your own faith journey, you can grab my free email course, Spiritual Reflections on my website, faithfringes.com. If you’re a therapist and would want to work with me, I offer sacred space holding for you through my consulting, as well as my soul care retreats. To find out more, go to my website or email me, dawn@faithfringes.com.

I love hearing from all my listeners. Drop me an email to tell me what’s on your mind. You can also connect with me on social media. I’m on Facebook and Instagram at Faith Fringes. As always, if you’re enjoying this podcast, I would love it if you could show it by your reviews. Go to Apple Podcasts and leave your review so that others can find this podcast and get curious about their own spiritual journey. Thanks again for listening.

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