I am currently at the end of an eight day journey alone.
Yep you read that… Alone.
P.S. My dog has been with me. =-)
Cedar’s first hike in the mountains
I have never really done this before… This being going off on a long trip alone.
I have been through some challenging situations in the last several weeks in my personal life and in this time I have questioned a lot in my life.
This journey alone has been in Colorado in the Rocky Mountains. I spent several days in Denver alone, a day in Estes, a day driving trail ridge road on my way to Winter Park to spend several days.
This has been one of the hardest things I have ever done emotionally, spiritually and in some ways physically. ( I had several days where I thought ,”this is crazy, pointless, and not going to matter.” I was a tad home sick and thought about just going home.)
I drove a stupid amount of miles and hours to what I had hoped would be a place where I could hear the voice of the Lord in ways that I didn’t think I could at home.
This physical journey has been a time of telling the Lord how I really feel and asking Him many questions and hoping for some kind of response to it all.
WHAT I HAVE HEARD IS SILENCE.
Silence in many ways in our culture is a good and rare thing to find. However, I didn’t take this trip to find silence. I was taking this trip to hear.
To hear anything that would bring understanding. To hear anything that would challenge me. To hear anything that would encourage me.
Really… Anything.
* I have been deeply sad and angry and I have held very little back from the Lord about my thoughts and emotions. I literally had an entire day of crying. (please don’t judge, it had been a long and heart wrenching few days and they all came crashing together in one full day of tears)
* I have had to make my way through mountains of lies concerning my worth and value to myself, others and the Lord.
* I have had to struggle through whether my voice matters to the lord as much as His matters to me.
A dear friend who recently went on a journey to the beach, (literally the opposite of me), just to hear anything experienced the same ending result… Silence.
I know that others experience this and while I don’t have an answer or understanding as to why at times when we need so desperately to hear from the Lord that this is what we are met with, I have to believe that He is in it all.
There has been a song that has been playing over and over in my head through this time, there are so many things I could say about this song and talk about but the thing I am clinging to is the opening.
“Every morning shines a brand new light*
A brand new light, yes a brand new light
Every morning shines a brand new light
It’s a whole new day somehow”
Song by: Danny Schmidt – Man of many moons
I have to cling to this statement that ever morning shines a brand new light and in that somewhere the voice of the Lord will break through and this scripture.
Isaiah 46:9b-11
For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, “My counsel shall stand and I will accomplish all my purpose,” calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.
He will do it all and it will all come to pass… whatever it is.