The Wilderness

Welcome, and I appreciate the welcome that I have been invited here. Yeah, they talk about generation gaps, and looks like I'm looking at a congregation gap of some kind. I'll just say this: after a while, I'm going to have you stand and sing a song, and anyone's welcome to move forward and join me up here that wants to. But if you're comfortable there, I will try to be as comfortable as I can here.

A thought for the week that I came across went something like this: if we can overthink the worst, why can't we overthink the best?

I had to ponder that. It's so natural when we're facing something to think of all the worst things that could happen and try to prepare for them rather than think about all the best things that could happen and try to expect them. I think that's a challenge I kind of want to take on myself. I have this thought that it may improve my outlook on life considerably.

And I guess I'll throw this out. While Dylan was speaking, I had this question that came to my mind, and I don't know if it's a good one to ask in public or not, but I'm going to ponder it this week, and so you can either take it or leave it.

But the question came. He was talking about things that last forever or eternal things, and he mentioned the Word of God. And I have this ongoing—I don't know what to call it—thing about the Word of God in the Bible that I like to think about. But the question came to me: will we have Bibles in heaven?

I will just leave that with you and let you decide why or why not.

I also want to take this opportunity to just express my appreciation for this congregation.

We've been here a long time, and it just feels like suddenly, with a snap of the finger, we're gone. I'm still—I don't know what—I'm still recalculating, I think. But I have to honestly say this: it's not like I really want to come back, and I'll explain that rather than just leave that one hanging with you like the question. Not because I wouldn't want to be back here, but I do have a very strong sense that I am where God wants me to be, and I feel like I'm being blessed with that. And as long as that lasts and God has me there, I want to enjoy that. But I often think about the things that this congregation has done in my life, and I think a lot of it is in preparation for where I am now.

And I just want to bless you with that and bless you here as you continue the work God has for you here. I was just talking to somebody the other day, and they were talking about it—I think the group from St. Thomas—going on. They were like, "So how many offshoots of Shippensburg is that now?" So we did a little count, and I think it's five or six or something, which is not really a small thing. I think this congregation has done a lot to spread what God has done here, and I think that's worth a lot. So I just want to thank you for all that you've done, and I'm honored to be here tonight.

I'll just have a word of prayer, and then I would like you to sing number 672 while I put my notes up here on the marker board. That's just bower hits for prayer. Father, I thank you for your presence here tonight, for the Spirit that's here, for what you've shared with us already in thinking about the things that are eternal and that we are a part of that. You have made us everlasting beings, and you've invited us into eternity.

And I also thank you for the fact that you have given us some instructions about things that we pick and choose and to let you guide us in those—not to be a respecter of persons or a respecter of things—but to most of all choose you and to choose that eternity that you've offered us. And Lord, I pray tonight as we continue here together talking about the way that you've ordained life and how you work with us, that we can better understand you and how you work in our lives personally and as groups and how you help us to grow.

In Jesus' name, amen. So you're welcome to stand to sing number 672, and I'll see if I can put my notes up here on the board.

So dear Lord, take up the tangled strands where we have rotten main, and by the skill of thy dear hands, some beauty may remain. Transformed by grace divine, the glory shall be thine. To thine most holy will, O Lord, we now are all resigned.

Touch thou the center scorned indeed of every troubled grass, and change to peaceful harmonies the sightings of unrest. Transformed by grace divine, the glory shall be thine. To thine most holy will, O Lord, we now are all resigned.

Where broken vows in fragments lie, the toll of wasted years, do thou make whole again we cry, and give us some for tears. Transformed by grace divine, the glory shall be thine. To thine most holy will, O Lord, we now are all resigned.

Take all the failures, each mistake of our more human ways, then save your forthwind all you say. Make them shall forth thy praise. Transformed by grace divine, the glory shall be thine. To thine most holy will, O Lord, we now are all resigned.

Maybe I'll first apologize to whoever's cleaning the church this week.

My title for tonight is The Wilderness. I wasn't sure where to start and stop. Maybe the board gives it away kind of. But I want to start first maybe with a few personal experiences that, as I look back over my life, I consider how they shaped me, how they affected me very deeply. And to this day, I don't think I really get it all, but I do know that they had a profound effect on my life. And I think the first one, and in some ways, I think maybe the most profound one outside of becoming converted, which I guess I could think about when did that really happen, was my experience down at Fair Play Boys Camp.

I went there when I was 18, kind of excited about being a Christian, helping young people change their lives, and all the excitement that goes with a camp, living outdoors, being wild, sort of. There are a few moments that I still can relive today from that experience.

One of them was one night all the boys were in bed. I actually had, I guess you would call it the good group. Back then, they had a good group after a while they figured out that didn't work, and so all the groups were the same, which I think was better. But I had the good group. The people that had been there, they were transitioning. They were in a group getting ready to leave camp.

All of them were in bed. And I remember walking around on the trail outside the cabins. That group didn't actually have tents. And thinking, what was I thinking? What made me think I could come here and do something for these boys?

After a while, I wasn't sure whether I should be there with them or am I really supposed to be here helping them. I can still feel that moment and thinking just how foolish it was for me to think I could come there and do something like that.

Another moment was still with that same group. One night, we were putting each of the boys in bed, and this one boy was sitting on his bed, and I think another one came and said something about he's—I thought I remembered his name, but he won't go to bed. He's just sitting there. He's acting weird.

So I went into the cabin, and yeah, he was kind of weird sitting there on his bed, just kind of staring at the wall. And here he was saying things, moving around on the wall. And yeah, once again, I'm like, this is out of my league.

This is for bishops and preachers or apostles. What's this 18-year-old doing here thinking he can do something for these people?

So yeah, I forget exactly. He did get calmed down. We prayed for him, and he finally went to bed. But there were several of those kinds of experiences. I remember sitting and talking with my co-chief one night, and I don't even remember the conversation, but I just remember, yeah, that's okay for him, but I'm just not sure this was really for me.

I do remember toward the end, we got rid of that group, and that wasn't the key. We were starting another group, getting rid of the transition group. And I remember thinking that was one of the last months or two I was actually at the camp, and things were going well. We were getting tents built up, and yeah, things were going good. And I remember thinking, wow, it was actually worth going through those difficult experiences, realizing that something is happening.

There's a lot happening.

And I remember some days away from camp just praying, reading the Bible, and saying, "God, I need something." And there were specific things in my life that I know that over that time, I dealt with more mentally and emotionally than in any other way.

And I do know that I left that experience a different person, changed in some small ways, I think. The other experience that I had was not that long ago, and I don't know if I talked about it much here, but when I quit teaching school and went working for Blue Mountain Woodcraft, and I want you to know this is no reflection on that place, those seven years were just strange for me.

I still don't know that I understand all of it. If it was just the culture shock of going from teaching students to just working at a bench with wood, I'm sure that had some to do with it. But as I look back, I realize some of the, I guess I'll call them mental battles and even spiritual battles that I fought working over that bench and on that wood again changed me in deep ways, more than I think sometimes. They look kind of small, but there were shifts that happened that were significant in how I related to myself, how I related to the people I went to church with, how I just related maybe to even the people I was working with.

And I call those wildernesses in my life. And tonight, I want to think about what a wilderness is, why we get into them, what happens, and what's on the other side.

The first person that I'm going to mention, and we'll come back to him kind of as my text for this, is the passage in Mark chapter 1. I think about 10 through 12, somewhere in there. Right after Jesus came up out of the water from being baptized, this is the way Mark records it. They don't all record it the same way.

And the voice from heaven and the dove came down and said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

I like to ponder that moment. What must have that meant to Jesus?

But the next verse there says, "Immediately, the Spirit drove him into the wilderness. Forty days and forty nights, got very hungry, tempted of the devil." The one passage feels like it's that whole time he was tempted of the devil was with the wild beasts, it says in Mark. That jumped out at me one time.

And the angels ministered unto him. It's all Mark says about it. I'm sometimes interested, why didn't he say more about it? We have more information in some of the other ones. But I want to think about some of those things about the wilderness. First, the Spirit driving him there. How do we get to wildernesses?

What are the things that take us to them, lead us to them? What does it mean to be tempted of the devil? How does that work? What does that do to us or for us? Being with the wild beast, that one I'm still thinking about. That one I might not have a lot to say about that, but yeah, I have some ideas.

And being ministered to by the angels, I'm sure that's the part that we all want, that we all long for. In his case, it came at the end. I'm going to start with Abraham. The Bible doesn't really talk about an actual physical wilderness for him. I think some of the time he was. It does say he lived in tents. He roamed around. It feels like a kind of a wilderness. But every time I ponder his life, from the time God called him from Ur till he died, I get a wilderness feeling, very strong wilderness feeling. All those years from '75 till I forget exactly how old he was when he dies, a hundred something, the only thing he ever owned probably was his tent and I guess his animals.

But the only land he owned was a place to bury him and his wife. That's the only piece of land he could call his own. And God was constantly promising him all the land that he could see. You just look around. Everything you see is yours.

But he never could claim it. Several times went off to other countries because of famines and the whole lot experience. So I have the word confused up here. One of the things about the wilderness that I know I experienced was just confused about things like, how do I make sense out of life right now?

How does it come together? Is this going to line up somehow? And I wonder how many times Abraham thought that way.

There was this promise of a child that had to be kind of confusing. It was promised time again, and he still didn't have any. And just to be blunt, I don't think it was because they didn't try, but they were just old, and it doesn't work.

And finally, they got a little plan together and had a son.

And Abraham, the impression I get is Abraham very much loved Ishmael. But finally, God says, "No, that is not the one." And Abraham's, "Here's Ishmael. Isn't this good enough?" And God says, "No, you will have your own son between you and Sarah." And it finally did happen.

I'm still a little humored by kind of how it happened when God told Abraham that. Abraham just laughed outright, "We're old." And a little bit of evidence that he and Sarah thought alike. When she heard it, she's laughed too like, "Yeah, we're old."

But it happened, and they named it laughter, Ishmael or Isaac. But even after that, still things happened that I think were very confusing. But there is one thing that I do notice about Abraham after Isaac was born. Whenever God told him something, I don't remember him asking any more questions. Before that, he would say, "How's this going to be?" And God would explain things a little bit, "Well, how can this happen?" But after that, when God told Abraham something, I think there was a change that happened. Whenever God told him, "Offer your son," he got up in the morning and did it.

And it feels like his life after that was more like, "Okay, God does have something going here, and I'm in on it. I'm with it."

But I think there were times when it seems obvious he was frustrated about what was happening, especially when God said, "You're going to have this many." He said, "More than you can count." And he's like, "Well, I don't even have a son yet."

It seems like he was, I don't know how frustrated he was, but confused and probably somewhat frustrated. And the other thing that I think Abraham experienced more than I like to think about or have thought about is loneliness. He was outside of his family and his kindred. He was alone.

And that whole lot situation, I think, maybe even intensified that somewhat. He did have a nephew with him, but finally, they had to part ways. His nephew chose the valley where it was real nice, and that was kind of the last Abraham ever really interacted with him.

There was two times Abraham went to bat for him. One was when those five nations went and attacked the area and hauled him off, and Abraham goes after him with his 300 men and brings him back. I just wonder how that all processed with Abraham. And the other time when God says, "I'm destroying Sodom," and Abraham says, "Can you," I'm going to interpret it, "spare Lot?"

And God says, "I will."

But outside of that, it doesn't seem like there was anything going on to the point where one of the things that I know Abraham finally accepted this was it got to the point where Abraham says, "When my son gets a wife, he's getting one from home, but he's not going."

That's very interesting to me. Again, I think it's evidence that Abraham and his wilderness experience came to a place where he understood at least enough of what God was doing that he was going to stick with it to the very point where if there was no woman coming from there, it was up to God again.

Because the servant says, "Well, what about if the woman doesn't want to come back to this place? Well, then you're free." What did he think about that? Probably the same thing he thought when he went to offer Isaac on the altar. This is going to have to be up to God.

I really like that shift that comes in that story where Abraham finally seems to rest in God. And the story in Hebrews brings that out. In 11, it says, "When he took," this is at least how I guess Paul wrote that book, how he understood the story is that when Abraham went to take Isaac, he believed that God would raise him up from the ashes of that sacrifice.

That says something. Wildernesses that change us do that kind of thing for us. A few other names that I have up here I'll mention. I don't know if I'll mention all of them. But another one that is kind of amazing to me is David. He actually lived in a wilderness. I don't know if we can calculate how many years that was, but it seems like it was in the ballpark of five to seven years where he was running from his father-in-law, his king, whom he had been loyal to. He was running for his life.

Confused. You don't have to read very many Psalms until you know like, "So what in the world is going on here?" And I think sometimes very frustrated. And I wonder if sometimes he even got angry about this. I know I would. Like, "This is so unfair. This is so wrong." When he did meet his father-in-law, there's two times that his father-in-law was up at him. "So why are you coming out after me? What have I done that you're after this flea or after this rabbit?"

And just pleaded with him. But one thing that comes out by that time is he is willing to leave whatever happens rest. He says, "God judged between us." And he let it rest that. He didn't take revenge. He didn't go back after him.

And even when Saul died, he treated it like a royal king that deserved the honor of a king. The eulogy, I guess I'll call it that he wrote about Saul is impressive. When you read this story, there is very little of that stuff that comes out of Saul's life that David wrote in that eulogy in 1 Samuel, I think it's chapter 1. All of the good things that Saul had ever done for his country and the good man that he was, how did he write that?

I believe it was the wilderness experience that brought him to the point where he was able to view it that way. And I won't say much about Joseph's life except to say in kind of my experience, I think maybe those kinds of wildernesses would be an extreme but might match our lives a little more. Like, he wasn't actually in the wilderness. Things were just going bad. Things were going wrong, going backwards.

And I would kind of like to know, it doesn't really tell us, and maybe this was before he was sold, where did he finally get to the point where when he met his brothers, he could say, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good."

That is an amazing statement to me. You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. Somewhere in that journey, he had got to the point where he was able to leave all of the injustice rest in God's hand and says, "God, you have something going, and I'm in it.

I'm not aborting this whole thing."

When Jesus was in the wilderness, oh, I do want to mention Elijah. One thing about Elijah's wilderness experience that is a little bit unique, I think, from the rest of them is the reason he was in the wilderness, those 40 days and 40 nights.

He had just, well, I don't always know the order of events, but the way it's in the Bible, he had come back from Zarephath with that widow and her son and that whole experience, which is probably kind of a wilderness experience in itself, and had this tremendous God tournament on Mount Carnival and won, hands down, destroyed all the prophets of Baal, prayed for rain. Rain came on Israel, outran Ahab to wherever he was going.

Just an amazing story where God was just doing it. And he gets a message that Jezebel is going to have your head by tomorrow.

He's in the wilderness right now. It says he went with his servant to some place and then dropped his servant off and went another day into the wilderness, sat under a tree, and said, "I am finished.

I'm just done."

Like, whose fault was it that he was in the wilderness? That one's kind of interesting to me. And the journey he had in those 40 days, I think, is very real to a lot of us. I think there are times when we wind up in a wilderness not because a spirit drove us, but because we made a choice based on some kind of fear or something else, and we ran.

But I like what happened for Elijah in that wilderness. God met him twice with food, and it says he went on that food for 40 days and 40 nights. He was ministered by the angels there. And what did God do? God took him up into, it calls it the mountain of God, and I'm not sure which one that might be. But there, he demonstrated something to Elijah that I think very much helped shift Elijah's view of how God works.

The thunder, the lightning, the wind, the earthquake, all of those crazy, powerful things. And he had just been to Mount Carmel and seen God do that kind of stuff. But there was this distinct impression that God was not in those things.

And then there was this whisper.

King James calls it a small voice, and I think it was a very small whisper. And immediately, Elijah was on his face recognizing God's presence in that. And I think from there on out, we don't know a whole lot of details about Elijah's story, but his life took on definite things, maybe similar to before. But I think there was something that had changed in him about who God was and how God was going to work through him, that he didn't need the huge big bang kind of stuff. He needed that voice giving him direction.

And then there was Jesus. We know the three temptations that he had. And I'm not sure what all might have happened in that wilderness. But the thing that stands out to me about all of those temptations, his reply to everyone was a complete resignation to how God works in his life.

Whether it's turning stones to bread, we all know he could have done that with a snap of the finger. Whether it was jumping off of a building and getting picked up before he hit the rocks. Or whether it was gaining all the kingdoms of the world in some other way.

I'm sure he could have done all of those where it wouldn't have been a temptation. But in every one, his response was, "I am going to do things the way my Father wants them done. I will not listen to you.

I will listen to my Father." And I think that's what the wilderness experience should do for us. It should give us a confidence in what God tells us so that when he gives us an instruction, whether we understand it, whether it's a bit confusing to us, we are willing, like Abraham, to immediately take the steps that God wants us to take.

And then there's Paul, and that's one story that I wish we had a little more information about. But he apparently had a wilderness experience. I don't know that we know how long it was. But somewhere along the way, after he had that Damascus experience, he wound up in a wilderness. And he says specifically, at least enough that it seems specific to me, that he met Jesus in that wilderness.

And Jesus taught him and talked to him. And whenever he talked after that, I feel like somehow the message that he spoke came from that experience that he had in the wilderness with Christ. So there are three things that I want to emphasize about a wilderness experience. One is we are there because either God drove us there or allowed our decisions to take us there.

But when we're there, the second thing is God wants to meet us in a very real way. He wants to meet us, help us be shaped and molded more into his Spirit, more into his way of thinking. He wants to rejuvenate us, revive us, give us the passion that we need with him. And he wants to give us a mission. And that mission is the last thing that I want to talk about. I feel like in my experience, coming back from camp, and I think my stay at SMBI was kind of part of that whole thing, I couldn't have told you at that moment that school teaching was my mission. But I do know that every time I did something besides to teach school, it did not last.

I would get very restless. But when I was teaching school, I felt very settled in what I was doing. And I think that whole experience was part of bringing me to that place where God could give me that mission and I could do it like he wanted to. The whole experience with Blue Mountain in the woodcraft shop, the struggles that I had with different people and different ideas that I battled over in my mind, and the kind of the rest and peace that came out of working through that, confessing that, letting God show me that that is not how I should look at the people around me. He has all these people. They're meant to work together.

And I can say now, at least with a certain amount of certainty, that that viewpoint of the people in my life has me more prepared for where I am than had it not happened.

So I think God puts us through the wilderness to make the adjustments in our personal lives, in our relationship with him, to equip us for a mission that he has for us. For Abraham, it was raising up a nation for God to bless all the nations of the world. And I often wonder how Abraham felt about that mission.

In my mind, he would have had to come to the end of his life and say, "Well, God, I did what you wanted me to do and die knowing that God's going to finish that mission." But he had a role in starting it.

And for Joseph, this is what he told his brothers. "I have become a father to Pharaoh." So I think that was one thing that he felt had happened. And the other one was, "I have saved many people alive."

And I think he felt that was the mission God had prepared him for through all of that experience. Moses, we didn't talk about him, but I will bring him up. His experience in the wilderness, 40 years after having killed an Egyptian to kind of relieve the burden of the Hebrews and got busted for it, 40 years in the wilderness was raising a family, working for his father-in-law, sheep in the wilderness. I think he felt probably rather settled. But it was there that God met him. And that conversation that Moses and God had, I think he never forgot. Can you imagine having an argument with God and God getting upset at you?

I don't know if I can quite imagine how that would be, but I don't think he ever forgot it. And God gave him a mission there to lead the children of Israel to the promised land and actually lead them through a wilderness. And we could talk about that. But David, David, his is unique to me in that he had been anointed before his wilderness experience, and he knew that he was the next king. To me, that would have made it more confusing. Why all of this? Why not just deal with the problem and get on with what God wants?

But he had resolved that anyone that God anointed, God is the one that takes them out. And he was willing to wait for that. And he actually insisted on it. You do not do that. And when he found out a man claimed to do it, he ended his life.

But he understood his mission, and he was willing to wait for it. And when God had him in his king, I think that whole wilderness experience was the framework for all of David's decisions that he made as king. Some of them I wonder about. But he was a kind of king that responded to life in a way that says, "I've been through some really tough stuff. I've probably done some really stupid things, and I've had to relate to some really crazy things." And he was willing to allow God to establish the justice for those kinds of things.

An amazing quality for someone with that kind of power. And for Jesus, his mission was the message, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." And also, he had a list that he read off in the synagogue when he came back from that wilderness experience of things that he knew God wanted him to do: heal the sick, deliver the captive, give sight to the blind, proclaim the year of the Lord. That was his mission. And he stuck with it clear to the end. And I think even though Jesus was Jesus, that wilderness experience was one of the things that set him for that. It says he came back from the wilderness in the power of the Spirit, and he walked in that the whole time.

I've often wondered if the first 30 years were part of his wilderness too. I'm not sure. We don't have enough. And I already mentioned Paul, he knew his mission before he went to the wilderness. God had told him, "You are going to take the gospel to the Gentile and to kings."

And when I look at that and look at how he kind of did his life, I think that was his focus was fulfilling what God gave him to do and allowing God to direct all of those things that led him to the people that he gave the gospel to.

So my challenge is I feel like most people probably have at least one wilderness experience that stands out in their life. If you are going to serve God, I think he's going to have to do some things in your life. You may not wind up in the trees with real wild animals, but you will wind up in trees and with wild animals. Some of them are things inside of yourself. Some of them might be people that are around you.

But God wants to meet you there. He wants to make some adjustments in your life. He wants to drive some stakes in your life that say, "God, I will do whatever you say, whether I understand it or not, and I will be all in." And accept the mission that comes along with that. For me, I don't think I really knew what it was until maybe I got in it. I think some people do know more specifically, "This is where God wants me to go." And they can go there.

My notes are an adaption of a I think it was a status that had come from I don't know where from of a prayer, "Dear God," and then a whole bunch of jumbles. And at the end, where God says, "I know.

I love you. You're a child, and I'm in this with you," has been a comfort for me because there are a lot of times I don't even know how to pray. It's just best to take the alphabet and throw it out and say, "God, I really don't know what to say to you right now, but I do want what you want." And he wants us to know, to feel that we are his child, and he's going to stick with us. If we do not abort, he will not abort. That's the Old Testament is probably one of my favorite overall pictures of God never aborting a promise that he gave, even though the people did the craziest things you can think of.

I cannot read through Judges and the Kings without wondering why in the world God put up with the children of Israel for what was it, 800 years? Because by the time he brought them to the promised land, he says, "10 times you've done this," and that was in 40 years. Well, add another 400, maybe once or twice. How many times can they do that same thing? But God always kept his promise, and God was always just with them.

I want to rest in that fact. And if God needs to take me through another wilderness experience to help drive that home, I want to open myself to that. And I want to encourage you all to do the same. Thank you very much.

Oh, I did want to read one little book.

Title is "I Just Can't Take It Anymore." I don't know if you're familiar with that book. It's a children's book, by the way. And I would like to show you the pictures, but you're too far back. Sometimes I just don't understand life.

I've heard that God only gives you what you can handle. But if that's true, he must have me confused with someone else because I just can't take it anymore. I hate my job. I have a knack for making the wrong business decisions.

I have the most horrible hair days. For some reason, I can't lose weight. I seem to make a habit out of getting involved in the wrong relationships. Everyone has abandoned me. Even my pet died. My life is just one big mess. I'm so tired of dealing with problems. I just want to get into bed, pull up the covers, and sleep, sleep, sleep.

Sometimes I wonder if God really is up there or even worse, if he just doesn't care. But deep down, I know that can't be true because life can be so beautiful sometimes. After all, there's music and good food and good books and puppies and Christmas and romance and just being alive.

So what's the answer to this mystery? If life's so great and God loves me so much, why do I always feel like my heart is breaking? Why do I feel so bad? I wonder, is God trying to test me? Because if he is, it would be nice if he could make the tests a little bit easier. Is he trying to cure me of some problem I have? Because if he is, I wish the medicine he's giving me wasn't so hard to swallow.

Is it that we're all connected somehow and God wants to use my pain to help others who are hurting? Because right now, I could sure use some TLC myself. Is it that God wants to build my character and make me brave, strong, and smart? Because you know I wouldn't mind being weak and stupid at least once in a while.

Or is it maybe that God wants me to stop ignoring him and start paying attention to the things that really matter in life, like praying more, helping those less fortunate than me, saying sorry for things I've done wrong, as well as forgiving the people who have hurt me, forgiving myself too for the mistakes I've made along the way. And God knows there have been some doozies and standing up for what's right in the world. Because if God really wants me to do those things, I'll try my best to start right now. But then again, maybe God has something else in mind. Maybe there's a bigger plan I can't see.

After all, I've noticed that the bad things that happen in life often lead to something good, that the scariest storms often turn into the most glorious skies, that the seeds we bury in the ground often come to life in the most extraordinary ways, and that even the toughest experiences can result in miracles.

In fact, I seem to remember that God went through some pretty tough times too, maybe even worse than mine. But somehow, some way, he was able to come through everything okay and transform even the most terrible suffering into the happiest ending.

If he can do that, then maybe he's got something special planned for me too. Maybe if I just give it a little more time, I'll see that something wonderful is right around the corner. So I guess the best thing for me to do is try not to despair or be too grumpy or get too worried about things I can't change and just take a deep breath, go one step at a time, work up the courage to do the things I know I have to do, try to find a couple of good friends to confide in and maybe even lend a hand because no one can bear the burden of life's troubles alone, and have a little faith that the one who made the universe and set the stars and planets in motion can help me figure a way to get through all my problems, no matter how overwhelming they may seem now, if I only put my trust in him.

And I think that's what wilderness experiences are to help us do. Just simply trust him. Thank you.