Sometimes we use God as our sounding board and we feel God's comfort and grace moving in our life. This reassures us as to our path and position. However, regardless of our religious views, there is a story about Jesus going into the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights...completely alone, completely devoid of the "guidance" that was the light of his life. This stage of aloneness is one we all have to go through.
There comes a time for each of us when we lose that connection to "home" in order that we take a look at our lives either to affirm our decisions or to see the starkness of our choices.
Think of it this way...if we were in some crummy summer camp where the food was awful, but we received daily "Care" packages from home containing our favorite foods, warm letters, and other goodies that made us feel cozy, camp would not seem so bad. However, if suddenly the packages stopped coming, and the connection to warmth was gone...we would have to pay attention to our surroundings. We would have to see what was really in front of us because there was nothing else to cushion the stark reality of life in that camp.
When we hit this phase...the wilderness phase...it is a gift to us. Because our connection to God seems gone or very dim, we have to take a look at what our choices have created in our lives. It is at this point that we have an opportunity to clear our view and to make determinations about WHERE we want to go in the future. It doesn't mean we have the answers in the moment. It means that through the confusion and disillusionment of where we have arrived, we are in a position to change our lives. We are ready for the Hero's Journey.
It is so easy to follow a track...a belief system about how we have to proceed. If there has been deep wounding in our life at an emotional level, we may want to consider some quality counseling as part of our hero's journey. Sometimes we have to go through the release of trauma before we can fully go forward.
We may find ourselves at a point where we want to change our entire life. And that can be scary, yet it can also be liberating. Perhaps we will find that everything we have done has been to fulfill someone else's idea of what we should do, be, and accomplish. Now through this "wilderness" experience, we are suddenly aware that throughout our journey, there was someone we left out of the quotient...ourselves!
The wilderness experience is a time of great possibility. It is a crossroads where we have the opportunity to choose an authentic life that will more closely reflect our deep inner dreams and longing. We must not be afraid to take the steps that will allow us to release the shackles to the past, or to a life path that no longer fits or satisfies us. We are all asked to make corrections from time to time within our lives. That is the beauty of life. It is not set in stone. It is fluid, and gives us opportunity after opportunity to choose the stream we wish to follow. And sometimes that stream changes as we grow in maturity.
We are the hero in this life experience. This is our journey. We can make of it a life fulfilling one, and know that the wilderness experience is a rite of passage that moves us from operating on automatic pilot to facing the emptiness we see with courage - strengthening our resolve to make of our lives the expression we want it to be. What an opportunity! What an awesome possibility awaits us!