As women, as mothers, God brings us into the desert but doesn’t abandon us there.
… led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days …
The Israelites and Jesus were both led by the Spirit into the desert. In his permissive, all-powerful will, God leads us into places that are barren and unknown, places that are difficult to understand and not always easy to accept.
We can easily identify “the deserts” in our lives — perhaps it is the laboriousness of the newborn stage, maybe the isolation experienced as a stay-at-home mom, possibly the nagging feeling of being torn in two while fulfilling the call to work and mother simultaneously, or it could be the constant, galling lack of charity found in our own hearts. These are the things that cause us to cry out to the Lord, asking him for help to escape or find some relief. There are many desert moments in motherhood.
Be with me, Lord, when I am in trouble.
Like the Israelites, we are sometimes stuck, crying out to the Lord. Listless, we wonder what the deserts are for. It can be tempting to turn toward self-reliance, not to trust that God will take care of us. The experience of our own poverty, whether it is financial, spiritual, emotional, intellectual, mental, or physical, can awaken a need for God and a reliance upon him. And he sees us.
The land was flowing with milk and honey, a surprise in what seemed desolate and barren. At the end of their forty-year journey, a land of their own, a land of promise was given to them. It took time and was hard to understand, but it was given as promised, and it was more than they could imagine.
I will deliver him.
Like Jesus, we are hungry, exhausted, tempted. We face the limits of our humanity, and we face the devil in the daily spiritual battle. The beloved Son was asked to endure and so are we. We are given all grace to persevere.
No evil shall befall you.
Imitating his response to the trials and temptations found in the desert, we rely on God, and not on things of this world, to live. This is really the only way to live with the Lord – in complete surrender and trust knowing that he will lovingly take care of us, his beloved daughters, as he has promised.
… dwell in the shelter of the Most High …
We worship and serve God alone, calling on him to come and be near, in our mouth and in our hearts, to free us from the enemy. We abide in his shadow, cling to him, and confess that he is Lord over our lives. Even in the “desert moments,” he is with us in our distress, delivering us, saving us.
My refuge and fortress, my God in whom I trust.