Wilderness Wooing

An excerpt from 'The Broken Way' by Ann Voskamp that might bless you today:

 'How many woods, how many wildernesses, had I found myself in? Had I known: God takes us into the wilderness not to abandon us - but to be alone with us? Wildernesses are not where God takes us to hurt us - but where He speaks to our hearts. Wildernesses can be safe because we are always safe when we are always with Him. Wildernesses can be where God woos. God had wooed me - wife of harlotry. I have cried in deserts, been revived by the caress of His grace.'

There is something freeing in accepting the fact that life will not be perfect and that it is not supposed to be. We think that we are owed certain things and that if we follow certain rules or guidelines or paths that things are supposed to do this or that and then they should be better or easier.

I was thinking about water and how it carves its own path and everything around it must submit. No matter how long a tree has been growing in the certain place, no matter how deep the roots, when the water comes it cannot stand but that is how it goes and that is okay.

How much better is it to fight the evil, to cling to the good, to surrender to the process, and to trust that you as an individual are worthy and loved that in the pain and the dark places you are never just on your own,

Every day I wake up and go about all I need to do to serve my family and every day I feel so alone and often it feels to me like how I would feel if I were lost in the wilderness. I know I am not. I can see my life, see the children sitting beside me but I feel alone. Reading the quote up above was beautiful for me and I hope as time goes on I can soak that into my marrow. In my lonesomeness there can be opportunity for God to woo me.

A couple weeks ago I was talking to my sister and she said something so profound.

She told me that every day I needed to go into my garden and ask God to romance me. I needed to ask him to love me and help me feel loved. I have tried to remember, have felt foolish in the asking, felt unworthy and yet have felt stubborn in that I WANT to feel romanced, I want to feel that wooing. Deep down don't we all?

There is a song

'I want to be romanced by the king of the ages
I don't want to sing of a passion I've never known
I want to get lost in the beauty of Jesus
To dance through the night
Around your throne'

And I do ~ I want to be romanced, I want to feel worthy, I want to feel like the wilderness is an invitation and I want to ~ as always ~ remember and hold that close
and so I write....