Are we out of the woods yet

Have you ever gotten lost while hiking. It’s a scary thought isn’t it. Imagine being in the middle of a forest or somewhere in a mountain range and not having any clue how to get back home. Unless you are a skilled tracker you could be in serious danger if you got lost in the woods. 

I love hiking but I go to very easy hiking spots that have trails that are marked out. There’s never a real danger of getting lost but I have gone a little off track now and then. Yesterday morning a few friends and I went on a very short hike and I started to think in this analogy (God often speaks to me in analogies). Our situations or circumstances can be like the woods. We are all “hikers” with a certain level of skill trying to navigate a whole lot of things in life whether it is career, relationship and even illness. 

I’ve written a bit in this blog about the fact that I suffer from some chronic illnesses: fibromyalgia, depression, endometriosis. You also may have picked up that I am a Christian. I believe that the Bible is truth, that Jesus died on the cross and is risen, that I am set free. I also believe that Christ heals: He healed people in the Bible, He died for my healing and by His stripes I am healed. Ok so what has this got to do with the woods. Well life is complicated and being a Christian and being chronically ill can add to this complication. See I feel like my health status is a journey that I am on and I’ve been in these woods for many years. It’s beautiful walking through a wooded area but come night fall and you may not want to be hanging around. I feel like this journey has been that : scary, dangerous even, but beautiful. The thing that I focus on the most in the past has not been how beautiful the journey is but on how to get out of the woods. I’ve prayed and begged God for healing: complete healing has not come. Sometimes it feels a bit like I’m lost in the woods and that I’ll never make it out. After my hike yesterday God reminded me that sometimes because of this perspective I’ve missed the beauty. Being sick is as horrible as you can imagine; worse actually. However; the person I have become, the love I have experienced, the people I have as my community are all a part of and because of me being ill and I would not change that for the world. God has shown me His strength, depth of compassion, power, authority, peace and mostly His Love through all of this. 

Another thing God has shown me is that He most cares about our heart. I think every Christian has come to a place of doubt in their faith walk and I think this mostly comes when we are faced with injustice, immense pain and suffering. Suffering, especially when it is unjustified or plain unfair, can make us question God and question His love for us. This is a deep, dark part of the woods to walk through. In the times I have felt disappointed in God, He has done the deepest work in my heart. All my questioning has resulted in a more steadfast faith. This is what God showed me today that the times I kept circling the same woods I was actually learning something. When I think of it this way I think of the Israelites. They didn’t wander the desert for 40 years because that is how long the journey took. It was because God had to do a work in them. God delivered the Israelites from slavery but they still had slave mentality. He loved them but God would not allow slave mentality in the promised land. And not because He is harsh but because if He did the Israelites would’ve have ruined the promise land for themselves. I am like the Israelites. I am hard headed and have a lot of wrong thinking and beliefs. God has been doing a work in me to change my heart. I’m not 100 percent there but I understand now that when I am being tested when I keep asking God how long; that it is His love that answers “Not yet”. I am not saying that God has given me illness, but I do believe He is working through it.

So here is some encouragement to all of you still on a journey asking : “Are we out of the woods yet”. God is preparing you, refining you. You are not lost. You are not defined by your circumstance. You may feel like the woods are scary and dark but open your eyes to the beauty, take in the scenery, breath in the air and let the one who knows the path lead you on.