Finding Hope in the Wilderness

“The body of Christ, broken for you.”

The woman’s voice echoed in my ears weeks after I stood before her and tore a small piece of bread from the loaf. I’ve taken communion more times than I can possibly count, but this instance is cemented in my memory as the first time a person of my own gender served me the body of Christ.

While I knew the moment would be significant, I couldn’t predict how profoundly it affected me. I broke down in tears trying to tell the story to my husband. I struggled for the words to convey to others my experience in seeing women preaching prophetically for an entire weekend. These moments became more sacred to me than I could have predicted.

For the past few years, I have walked a rocky road in terms of faith.

The church became my family when I reclaimed faith as an adult. My most profound relationships and greatest lessons have church at the center. I can’t picture what my life would look like without the church. I genuinely love the people of the church.

And yet I struggle in the church. I long to bring my daughter into service to see a woman teaching from the stage. I want my LGBTQ brothers and sisters to feel affirmed by the church, not bullied by it. I wish worship reflected the ethnic diversity I see in the seats. I desire for teachers to stop preaching self-improvement gospel and challenge the congregants to fully embrace the sacrificial ways of Jesus, setting aside the idols of comfort, conformity, and acceptance. I am tired by the Christian leaders who choose to focus on political gains while ignoring the global poor.

I have set aside my black-and-white certainty and taken up my cross of living in the gray. I’m comfortable admitting I have no answers for many of our most complex theological questions. Doubt is my frequent partner on this path.

I’m becoming more comfortable with the road I’m on, but it can feel lonely. I keep most of my convictions to myself, so I don’t cause people to be unsettled; so I don’t spark controversy. I know I’m an outlier in my faith community. I miss the days when I could sit in an auditorium and not wrestle with God.

When I focus on my own story, I miss the bigger picture that God has always been a God of the wilderness. God isn’t afraid of my doubts or struggles. Not only is he in the desert; he actively leads those of us who find ourselves wandering parched lands with heavy hearts.

I recently re-read Exodus 16–18 and was struck by this truth: God guides us in the wilderness and provides our every need there, even if it isn’t his ultimate destination for us. When I know where to look, I can still see manna and quail falling from the sky and water flowing from rocks. Here are just a few examples of the provision God is giving me in this wilderness season.

Fellow Travelers

I recently attended the Evolving Faith conference. I knew the conference would uplift and teach, but I had no idea how healing it would be. A holy weight filled the room where I gathered with my fellow weary travelers on this path: people who love Jesus profoundly but are struggling to find him in the American church. In my deepest loneliness, God provided a new community for me, people who are willing to wrestle with Scripture and ideas like Jacob wrestled (Genesis 32), and as many of the speakers that weekend reminded us, people who are like Jacob walk with a limp from the struggle.

Fresh Teachers

New voices are encouraging and instructing me in this wilderness season. Until a few years ago, most of the Christian leaders I learned from were white males. The wilderness has brought me to the feet of women of color, and I’m greatly humbled by their teaching. I encourage us all to look at who we learn from and diversify that list until it resembles the global church.

Faithful Practices

Did you know over one-third of the psalms are songs of lament? People cry out to God in their distress and desperation. These psalms are a comfort to me when I see pain and injustice in the world. Truly, nothing under the sun is new (Ecclesiastes 1:9), and the people of God have been calling on him to move for millennia.

My faith has been deconstructing as I spend time in the wilderness. On the days I’m not sure what I believe, I can always hold fast to the Apostle’s Creed. Reciting the creed has become a regular part of my prayer time.

This time of year we regularly seek new beginnings and change. I think we fail to acknowledge that some change is terrifying. Some changes bring about a loss of community, a loss of certainty, and what St. John of the Cross calls “the dark night of the soul.”

If you feel the rumblings of change under the surface or fear an evolving faith, I’m here to tell you God is in the wilderness—and it’s beautiful here. You won’t find the opulent beauty of a majestic city, but you will find the hard-won beauty of wildflowers growing through the cracked soil and a smile on the dust-covered face of a fellow weary traveler. As Audrey Assad sings in a song that has been a lifeline to me, “out past the fear, doubt becomes wonder.” I’m growing and thriving in the wilderness. There is room and blessing for you here.

Lindsay Hufford is a writer, slow marathoner, home educator and mediocre knitter. Her favorite things include books, kombucha, kitchen dancing, natural wellness, Jesus, and nachos. She spends days with her handsome hubby, three adorable kids, a flock of hens, a runaway peahen, wandering barn cat, and rescue dog. Lindsay shares ways to live simply and love extravagantly at www.lindsayhufford.com.