I am home.
This past week has been a lot. It’s weird when you prepare yourself to be away from all things comfy & “home” for so long, & then in 4 days it turns into only being gone for less than 3 months. This isn’t going to be a sad post about being confused about what God is doing, because I trust him & when I chose to go on the race, I went out of obedience to God. & I will continue to be obedient to him, regardless of where I am! The ways this virus is hurting & affecting people around the world is far more sorrowful than getting sent home early. Praying for the entire globe in all of this & remaining hopeful for wherever God has me in this next season. Maybe going back on the field when things settle down, maybe staying home, maybe something else. I believe something so beautiful is going to come out of this thing that is so messy.
*** just a heads up, this next part will be quite long, but I just wanna share the sweetest thing God taught me in my time on the race 🙂
I don’t know what comes to your mind when you hear the word ‘wilderness’, but if you asked me a month ago I would probably say something like “lonely, woods, hidden, dark, scary, far away?” I don’t really know.. maybe something along those lines.
This month (& race) has been figuring out what the wilderness is. I would like to make a public shout out to God right now for his persistence & constant pursuit of me in this. Try & convince me that God isn’t real when He does the COOL THINGS THAT HE DOES.
I won’t share the whole story (on here) but I’d love to share a bit of it. & with it, will come some vulnerability, so bear with me 🙂
As long as I have had a relationship with God I have wrestled in my deep intimacy with Him. The more I learn about myself & grow, the more I realize I actually have a hard time having intimacy with, well, mostly everyone. Walls walls walls. So many walls. “I love you, but don’t come to close.” These walls have made me convince myself that I am basically incapable of feeling true love or being deeply affected by love. (WHY WOULD I JUST LET MYSELF ACCEPT THAT). If you know me, you know that I fight hard for people to remove shame & chains, & walk in freedom. Sooo I think God had to put his foot down with me & make me do the same.
I feel like God & I have a pretty sweet thing going. I know He hears me & I love when I get to hear from Him. Literally guys, if we just look for God, He is there. I know it sounds too easy, but I just can’t stress that enough. He doesn’t leave & never has.
Anyways, wilderness.
After my own personal encounters with the word “wilderness”, I wrote in my journal that the word “wilderness” was standing out to me. I straight up said, “God, I already left my home for 11 months, you best not be telling me I need to go out into the wilderness???” But haha, jokes on me, because I would very quickly find out that I was already in the wilderness. Deep in there. Whoops.
Through people (both friends & strangers), scriptures, & prophetic words- God did all he could do to show me the wilderness. He used all these things to teach me about it, reveal to me what it was & how I was in it, but also show me where He was in it. Because that is the point, He is there. It’s like He has been screaming at me for years, “SAMANTHA! LOOK AT ME! I LOVE YOU!” Why the heck have I decided to walk my entire life ignoring this truth?? This truth will change your life guys, & I am fresh in it. Still in the wilderness & still figuring out what it means to have a God who is UNAPOLOGETICALLY & UNCONDITIONALLY IN LOVE WITH ME.
Israel, God’s first love of a nation & people, was constantly brought back into the wilderness just so God could show them how much He loved them. They would forget God almost immediately when things got hard, & would question why bad things were happening, but then God would show them his endless love & grace, over & over & over again (read Exodus) :). In Hosea 2:14, God says, “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.” (Hosea uses a beautiful metaphor of a man with a woman- comparing God’s love to Israel). The wilderness is kind of hard guys. The more I realize how deep into the wilderness I have been brought, I realize how many chains of fear, insecurity, comparison, & lies I have been carrying. But dang is it sweet that I get to be in a place where God speaks so tenderly to me & He will not let me walk out of there until I begin to understand how deep His love is for me.
Jeremiah 31:2-3 says, “The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness; when Israel sought for rest, the Lord appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.”
There is grace in the wilderness, a lot of grace. & a lot of love. Let us not be people who forget or never learn how deeply loved we are & freely forgiven we are. God has no desire for us to carry these chains & burdens, & as long as we have them, He certainly does not let us to do it alone.
Matthew 11:29 & 30 says – “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” LET HIM CARRY IT FOR YOU. He nailed these things to the cross & all He wants is for you & all the people of all the Earth to just know & feel how DANG DEEP His love is for us.
The wilderness isn’t as scary as I thought it was. & maybe we are all a little bit in the wilderness until Jesus comes back. But, it’s real sweet getting to learn & experience God’s love. No one is the exception to it.
There is grace in the wilderness. A perfectly messy & beautiful wilderness.
For now, I am home. & maybe this is all just a part of walking through the wilderness.
I love you all!
& so does God
