I’ve decided to write some thoughts about what I read in this book. I really just want to write about some of the things that almost directly correlated with my own wilderness season. Not everything is the same, but she had a pretty similar situation and the words she wrote really resonated with me.
In the beginning of the book, Marian Jordan describes a season of her life that was a combination so fierce it can only be described as the perfect storm:
Heartbreak
Rejection
Humiliation
Disappointment
Unmet Desire
Loneliness
Despair
Rejection
Humiliation
Disappointment
Unmet Desire
Loneliness
Despair
aka The Wilderness. A time when everything sort of falls apart and there’s nothing you can do about it. Most of us have been there…many of us have yet to experience this part of life. But, Jordan says she realized if this was a test, she was surely failing. She says a friend came into her room and saw her state and “Seeing myself through her eyes, I saw a girl who didn’t seem to have joy. A woman who didn’t have assurance that the future was filled with hope, and, therefore, she was living in the pit of despair.” When I read that, I thought…oh dear God. I am living in the pit of despair and I’m in complete denial about it. I’ve got to get out.
So what do we really do when life throws us something completely off the radar? When our future is changed, or even ruined, at the drop of a hat? How do we handle heartbreak, rejection, humiliation, disappointment, unmet desire, loneliness, and despair? For me, the easy thing to do would be to hole up in my room, close off my heart, and never love again. If that doesn’t sound like a life worth pursuing, I don’t know what is. But, as the Fray say, sometimes the right thing and the hard thing are the same.
I decided that I would really face this wilderness season head on. With the armor of God. (Side note: I’ve been really into comparing my life and imagining myself engaged in an epic battle…seriously, I even motivate myself at the gym by imagining that I’m preparing for the Battle of Armageddon). So…there will be more thoughts on my own life and the book and hopefully some scenes from Lord of the Rings or the final Harry Potter.
