There will come a time, however, when you’re ready to start looking around you with new eyes, a time for beginning to imagine or uncover the “might-bes”, rather than focusing only on the “what-ifs.” Though God does not inflict loss on us, God does use those times — when we are ready — to invite us forward into new life. Catching a glimpse of what God hopes and desires may take awhile. The Israelites didn’t see the land that God had promised them for forty years. Most of our own travels won’t last anywhere near that long, though they might feel like that at times. Sometimes they feel that way, however, because we’re not noticing that the journey through what feels like dry, arid spaces is actually a rich walk through a landscape full of possibilities.

In one of my favorite children’s books, Ellen Raskin’s Nothing Ever Happens on My Block, Chester sits on the curb, bemoaning the dullness of his neighborhood. All the while he fails to notice that behind him, kids play practical jokes on adults, police capture robbers, a girl breaks her leg and gets taken away in an ambulance, a parachutist drops in, and so on. Chester is so focused on his own vision of excitement — or lack thereof — that he’s oblivious to everything happening right where he sits. In the midst of our own travels through the desert of mourning, it is easy to be like Chester and not notice the gifts of the land through which we are traveling and who we are becoming as we move forward.

The Israelites struggled with this throughout their desert travels. Focused almost exclusively on what they had lost, they were often blind to what and whose they were becoming. Terence Fretheim, professor of Old Testament at Luther Seminary, writes that the book of Exodus “is concerned with how these people more and more take on their identity, becoming in life what they already are in the eyes of God” (Exodus, Westminster John Knox Press, 1991, p. 22). In other words, the Israelites needed to wander until they discovered how to stop being slaves of Egypt, and become, instead, what God already knew them as — the people of God. In the same way, our journeys through grief and mourning, at least in part, are about leaving behind who we were, whether that was welcome or not, and becoming what God calls us to be now. The desert, whatever shape that takes for each of us, is our home for that process, and though it may not always seem so, it is a rich resource full of life if we are willing to look around and pay attention.

In the midst of the desert God provided the Israelites with food, water, and companionship; God walked with the people every step of the way. God makes the same promise to each of us. Whether we are aware of it or not, God provides for us and walks with us. God is also shaping us in ways we may only understand later, just as was true for the Israelites. (One of the great truths of the spiritual life is that all is clearer in retrospect than in foresight!) May your own journey be blessed, and may it lead to a place rich in wonders — like the Burren’s wildflowers — that you can only dimly imagine right now.

Debra K. Farrington is a freelance writer and the author of eight books of Christian spirituality, including The Seasons of a Restless Heart: A Spiritual Companion for Living in Transition.

Share a comment    Share this article 

November: Blessing in the Country of Mourning by Martha E. Stortz

Theme verse: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." (Matthew 5:4) 

In this session, we enter the country of mourning with two biblical women as our guides: Hagar, the mother of Ishmael, and Mary, the mother of Jesus. There we encounter Jesus both as one who mourns and as one who comforts those who mourn through the blessing of his Spirit, the Comforter.

To get the Bible study, subscribe to Lutheran Woman Today magazine. It’s only $12 a year for 10 issues. The Bible study and articles in the magazine are discussed on the LWT blog.