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From Loneliness to Solitude
43 Plays1 year ago
How many of you are in a season of loneliness? In this episode, I share my own personal experience with loneliness and embracing the season I am in.
If you have questions or would like to submit a topic to discuss on the podcast, please contact me at unitednotuniform@gmail.com!
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast Purpose
00:00:01
Speaker
You are listening to the United Not Uniform podcast, and I am your host, Crystal. The purpose of this podcast is to have intentional spaces that allow and celebrate difference. Now, this can be difference of opinion, experience, and more. In this podcast, we will be able to truly hear and see one another, even when we disagree. What would it look like if we were truly able to see one another, to set aside fear, insecurity, and doubt, to be willing to embrace the silence
00:00:31
Speaker
and let words carry their full weight. If that sounds like fun, or at least a tiny bit interesting, you are in the right place. Together we will grow as we discuss different topics, hear other stories, and have a few laughs along the way. Welcome to United Not Uniform, where there is more than enough space for us to be seen and to see others.
Crystal's Personal Experiences
00:00:58
Speaker
How are you all doing? It has been far too long. Thank you all so much for the grace. I feel like this last couple of months have just been a complete whirlwind full of things that are both good and bad and just areas in which I'm learning about myself and continuing to stretch and grow. If you all are in a similar place, then I'm sure you all can relate.
00:01:25
Speaker
I almost feel like going back to our first episode where it was this idea of getting over perfectionism and really starting where you start. I had no idea that in a year where the word it feels like is emerge, where I'm being called into new spaces and to trying new things, which I love, I love seeing what I can do and taking risk, I know.
00:01:51
Speaker
complete opposite of what you would expect a recovering perfectionist to say. But it's also required going back and processing things from my past and really going inward and looking and reflecting on myself. So there's just been a lot, a lot of life, a lot of good, a lot of, I won't say bad, but a lot of learning.
00:02:14
Speaker
So I wanted to start first with being really honest and open with you all.
Struggles with Loneliness
00:02:20
Speaker
You've seen from some of the guests that we've had so far, or even in my own story, this is a podcast where we want to be real. We want to be honest about how we come to spaces
00:02:30
Speaker
and what's going on in our lives, right? And so for me, full transparency, as much as you guys get to experience bubblies for energetic and happy crystal, I am also a person that in this particular season has really been struggling with loneliness. Now to give a little bit of context, I now work
00:02:51
Speaker
for my local church where everybody is married. I believe I'm the only full-time staff member with the exception of maybe one other person that isn't married or in a serious relationship.
00:03:06
Speaker
Uh, I now also go to seminary where in my seminary classes, for the most part, they are remote, but everybody is married. And so, you know, as someone who is desiring to be married, desiring to have kids of their own, uh, you can be, it can become very, uh, not alarming, but you become more sensitive and aware of when your life doesn't look similar to all of those around you. Right.
00:03:31
Speaker
Now, we're surrendering the husband, the kids, all of that to God. I know it's coming and it will happen. But where I am right now, I'm lonely.
00:03:44
Speaker
Now, there are some days where I am just celebrating my singleness and I can do whatever I want, right? If I want to go to the beach one day, if I, you know, I'm getting ready to go on this trip to celebrate one of my friends turning 40, so celebrating this new and amazing decade. Yeah, I can plan. I'm not really thinking about anything else other than who is going to catch it, right?
00:04:10
Speaker
But there's also still little moments in my life where my loneliness or the fact that my singleness really kind of feels more of a barrier than something to be celebrated, right? I always use the example, I know you guys are gonna laugh at me, but hey, we're gonna be real. One of the times where I feel the most single
00:04:35
Speaker
is either if there's a bug in the house or if it's trash night, right? So I live in the suburbs and oftentimes on Wednesdays I'll work a full day at work in the city in DC, drive back. Typically my commute home takes about
00:04:53
Speaker
Well, no. My commute home will take about an hour, depending on traffic. But for this particular semester, I'm taking Greek. And my Greek class, my Zoom class, is from 6.30 to about 8 p.m. at night.
Living Alone: Challenges and Reflections
00:05:08
Speaker
And so that paired with by the time I finally get home, it's trash night, right? So I look around at all my other neighbors, most of which are also married, and I see all the husbands, like putting together all the trash, bringing them up the stairs, and putting them out on the stoop. Now, ladies,
00:05:29
Speaker
and people, anyone can take out the trash, right? It's not solely a man or a female's job, that's not what I'm getting at. What I'm getting at is there's something about having a companion or a partner to do life with, right? So I know when I come home and if I haven't washed any of the dishes, if I haven't put the trash out, that's still all on me, right?
00:05:53
Speaker
if my house is a pigsty, right? There's no one. And even if I have like all of these exams and these classes and all these things to do, there's no one that's really there to help me pick up the pieces. Now, on the other side, there's also no one else there to make the mess. All the mess is mine. I understand that. But there's something about when you see what healthy relationships look like,
00:06:18
Speaker
when you get to celebrate the weddings and the baby showers and to see what it looks like for people to be life mates in a healthy and honoring way of each other that you desire that you want that and you start to see
00:06:38
Speaker
It starts to become more apparent when your life doesn't look that way, right? And so I always say, like, trash night, that's the night where I'm just going to have to spend a little bit of extra time with God. I'm going to turn up that prayer music, praise music. I'm going to call a good friend and just lean into how I'm actually feeling in that moment. So, you know, I thought, OK, we're working. We're going through the motions. That's completely enough.
00:07:02
Speaker
And lo and behold, God was like, oh no, on top of this, even in your season of loneliness, even as I'm calling you to these new spaces and you're confronting new things, you need to take a personal retreat.
00:07:16
Speaker
Now for those of you who aren't in the church space, a retreat is typically what you'll take if you were trying to, you know, spend some time with just you and God. Sometimes you can do more of a communal retreat. So say like you'll go with a couple of people, you'll meditate on scripture, maybe you'll be in nature. Sometimes it will be more of a program, right? A retreat can be really however you make it, right?
00:07:40
Speaker
The ultimate goal is that you're growing closer either, you're growing closer to God, but also to whoever you travel with as well. And so by taking a personal retreat, I'm not doing this as part of the church, God is like, no, you were going to go somewhere by yourself in the woods, you got it. Come on West Virginia, you got it.
00:08:04
Speaker
And, you know, at first it sounded kind of like a fun idea of like, oh, well, I love being in nature. I love being away. Like, okay, cool. So I've found this nice Airbnb close to a state park with all these mountains and trees. And it's a little tiny Airbnb with a huge outdoor deck where you can just look up at the stars and it's on like a farm. There are cows. I call cows moo moo's. I can't help it.
00:08:29
Speaker
um but there's just something about like being isolated there's no cell signal whatsoever so you know we are out here and um there's just something that i'm so excited about being able to get away but if i'm on if i was really honest in that season of my life it felt like i was really going through the motions like here i am you know um
00:08:51
Speaker
doing all of these amazing things in the church, whether it's from supporting the amazing worship mates that we're doing, to being able to support some amazing ministries and people, and to really pour into others.
Seeking Joy and Spiritual Connection
00:09:05
Speaker
But I was really in a place where it felt like, you know, God had put on my heart to lean into what does joy look like? What is the meaning of joy? In a time where, you know, I would have glimpses of joy, I would experience it,
00:09:17
Speaker
But God felt so far removed, so far abstract, right? I would read my scripture, I would pray, and I would have these moments with God, but how I was engaging with God, the experiences that I was having with God was looking very different. It felt like there was some distance, right?
00:09:41
Speaker
And so again, going into this personal retreat, I'm like, okay, well, I know I need to do it. I wanna be obedient. I don't know what's gonna come. And my counselor who is extremely wise was like, Crystal, before you go on this retreat, you need to set your intentions. What are your intentions for this retreat? And I was like, look, I'm just trying to be obedient to God. I'm trying to check this off the list of the a million other things I have to do. I also did not mention that when I am taking this personal retreat, it is the week of Holy Week.
00:10:11
Speaker
leading up into Easter. For those of you who don't work at a local church or attend a local church, Easter is a really, really big time of celebration. In some traditions, every single day of Holy Week is celebrated or acknowledged, right? And then you have Holy Thursday, which is in remembrance of the Last Supper.
00:10:35
Speaker
You go into Good Friday, which is when Jesus is killed and you are mourning and lamenting. There is silent Saturday and then you go into Easter where Jesus is resurrected and there's a huge celebration. In the particular church that I work for, that included three different services for Easter.
00:10:56
Speaker
in about 28 baptisms. So it was gonna be a really, really big day on top of Good Friday service decorating for Saturday and then leading up to Easter. And so the idea of me going away on a personal retreat seemed a bit crazy to me. But again, wanting to be obedient and leading into it.
00:11:19
Speaker
And so as my counselor was saying like, okay, crystal, what are your intentions for this personal retreat? I was like, well, you know, I really hadn't thought about that. Like I just figured just be showing up. That would be enough. And she again, very wise, she's like, you know, anything you're going into, you need to set your intention, pray to God. What, what are the things that he's putting on your heart for this time? Right?
00:11:45
Speaker
And I found myself as I was praying and reflecting over this retreat before I was leaving, is I really wanted to reconnect with my old friend. It felt like
00:11:58
Speaker
I don't know. It's like using the example of, you know, we all have those friends, right? Those best friends that we know, it doesn't matter how much time has passed. When we meet up, it's like we talked yesterday, right? We're talking about the same jokes. We're talking about life as if time hasn't passed, right?
00:12:19
Speaker
And that's not a bad thing to have those friends that we know no matter what. We love them and we feel that connection. But we also miss those friends. It'd be nice to be able to talk to your friend every day. And some of you do, right? It'd be nice to be able to see that friend every single day, right? And I was starting to feel that way in my relationship with God.
00:12:44
Speaker
Now having the gift of hindsight now, I'm able to realize a lot of ways that my personal relationship with God and what I was doing in the ministry he entrusted me to and caring for others had become intertwined and entangled. And there wasn't really a separation.
00:13:03
Speaker
And that can be very draining if you make a relationship into tasks or things to be done, as opposed to the relationship being at the center and everything else just being an overflow and outpouring. That's a separate podcast, but that's a little bit of what was happening. And so yes, my intention for this retreat was really to be still with the Lord,
00:13:29
Speaker
and to reconnect with my own best friend, my oldest best friend. And so, it's like the day before the retreat, and I'm like, okay cool, I've like packed up everything, we know, actually, I had no idea where I was going, even though I had the, like I'm one of those people, if you pay for like where you're staying, and you know how you're gonna get there, everything else is just gonna work out, like I know, I'm not the best person to travel with, I'm sorry.
00:13:56
Speaker
Um, but it was like the day before and I'm putting everything together. I'm, I'm planning my route because again, it's just on the mountain, you start to lose cell signals. So I need to really have a plan of, and making sure I know where I'm going. And I felt all of this crazy amount of fear and anxiety about this trip.
00:14:15
Speaker
I was like, well, what if I get lost in the woods? There's so many different horror movies about that, right? Or what if the place I'm staying at doesn't actually look like the pictures? I mean, I know it's Airbnb, but what if it's different, right?
00:14:30
Speaker
What if my car breaks down? Like it was like all of these things, some practical, these things do happen, right? But the amount of fear I was experiencing right before I was leaving was just so bizarre. I had just come from a time of spending time with family and worshiping and really having a lot of rest. So where all this anxiety and this fear was coming from just seemed to be so out of place.
00:14:57
Speaker
And I had to pause and just pray and just be like, okay, I am trying to be obedient. I wanna be obedient. I know I'm going because look, we already paid for it and we're not about to lose that money, right? But I'm knowing that there's a reason that I need to go on this retreat. There's a reason that I need to isolate and be alone. But Lord, I'm fearful. I'm fearful, I'm afraid.
00:15:22
Speaker
And as I was spending time in quiet and reflecting, I realized, yes, all of these other things that could happen and could make things inconvenient and troubling, but I know deep down that wouldn't stop me from going. What I was the most afraid of was actually being alone.
00:15:41
Speaker
Now, yes, I talked about having feelings of loneliness, but it's different feeling lonely in your home with where you know your neighbors and having your cats and being able to go off and do different activities or constantly being around people even if you're not in the same space versus deliberately driving in the woods to be isolated and to be reminded of the loneliness and the aloneness that you feel. And I had to be honest with that.
00:16:13
Speaker
That is why I was afraid. That is why I was terrified. And I still packed up that car, got on the road. I was like, Lord, just get me through minute by minute, moment by moment. I'm trusting you. I'm trusting you that there is going to be something here for me.
Retreat and Self-Discovery
00:16:39
Speaker
So we're driving, and it's so funny, I'm hoping for more traffic, you know, just to kind of delay. But of course, there's no traffic, it's smooth sailing. Even as I'm driving up on the mountain, everything is so clear from the instructions from my host, and I make it to the place in no time. And it is so cute, it's just so homey.
00:17:02
Speaker
perfect for one or two people and I go ahead and I move in all my stuff. I move in all the food and all my again just one bag and my journal and I'm just sitting outside and just marveling at the view. I'm at a deck that's on the second story and I'm looking out and it's nothing but trees and moo-moo's
00:17:28
Speaker
And it's just so quiet and so peaceful and I just am praying to God. I'm listening to scripture, listening to poetry and just writing out again those intentions that I have of wanting to reconnect with my own friend and also being honest about some of my fears, some of my doubts and
00:17:50
Speaker
you know to be in a in a year where the word over over my life is to emerge both the joys and the excitement and and feeling seen and being called out and also the fears in um really having to be stretched in ways that may be uncomfortable um to try things that i'm not good at um to have to learn right
00:18:18
Speaker
And to, I would say, not only learning skill, but also learning that it's okay to fail. Learning it's okay to start at the bottom and work our way up. It's okay not to be perfect the first time. Y'all, I told you, recovering perfectionist, right? And so after I have that moment, I come inside, I have dinner, and it's just so quiet.
00:18:46
Speaker
Now, if you are in DC or you live in a condo building like me, even if it's quiet in your space, most of the time you can hear movement, whether it's people outside or kids playing or, you know, in the city, like traffic, things like that, there is nothing. And when you're sitting in that silence, how you are feeling your thoughts become even louder.
00:19:15
Speaker
So this first night I go back outside once it's dark and I just look up at the stars. I'm playing music a little bit but really I'm just in awe of the beauty of God's creation and the ability to be still. You know, I'm still excited. The loneliness is starting to kind of creep in. It's not really there because everything is still so new. But there's, you know, there's just such a peace in being able to be still and knowing that the rest of life
00:19:44
Speaker
is being cared for. I'm not checking email, I'm not checking my phone. Even though there's wifi, you know, I'm trying to be really diligent of separating and being away. And then it's time for bed.
00:19:57
Speaker
And, you know, full transparency. As I'm going for bed, I did watch a Netflix show or two, right? But I found myself, you know, really struggling to go to sleep. There's still a little bit of anxiety. You're in a place that's not your own. But eventually, finally, I fell asleep.
00:20:18
Speaker
So as I wake up, in regular time, originally guys, I am not, like I was never a morning person. I was that person that if I had my way, I'd wake up at noon and just stay up all night. And adulthood and thirties has changed me. So now sleeping in, it looks like 7 a.m., 7.30 if I'm feeling lazy, I know. And so I wake up and I see the cows out there. I hear a rooster in the distance.
00:20:48
Speaker
And I just sat down and I had brought a book with me by Henry Nowan called Reaching Out.
Embracing Loneliness for Deeper Understanding
00:20:55
Speaker
And in this book he's talking about how we're moving from loneliness to solitude, from hostility to hospitality, and then I believe from illusion to prayer.
00:21:09
Speaker
I think that's the last one. I'm not sure if those are the exact same words, but that is the gist. And as I'm reading this book, I've already read the part from loneliness to solitude, but there's something about when you are alone and feeling lonely and rereading texts like God is going to show up and speak to you in new ways. And as I was reading this,
00:21:32
Speaker
It really stood out to me about how much we want to escape our loneliness. When we feel lonely, that our first reaction and our first inclination is how do we make ourselves busy? How do we escape this feeling? Because it's not good, right? And in Henry's book, he's really talking about what if we see loneliness?
00:21:50
Speaker
more as like a threshold as opposed to something that we run from. That when we do feel lonely, when we do feel this, how are we going inward and hearing the inner voice? Now for some of you who are like, okay, this sounds so hypothetical and high level, like what does this look like in a practical standpoint? And so using my own experience to be more specific, I had realized that
00:22:20
Speaker
In my escaping of loneliness, I was acknowledging that I was feeling lonely. I would name it. I had processes in place to not get to a low, low point, to be able to name it, to feel it and keep moving, right? But I wasn't addressing the inner voice or the part of me that really was like, I'm feeling lonely because I desire to be married. And every year,
00:22:49
Speaker
Each year when I'm not married, it's getting harder and harder to hold onto that hope. I'm feeling lonely and fearful that as I get older, as a woman, I might not even be able to conceive. I'm sad because as much as I desire a relationship,
00:23:16
Speaker
I don't think I've had one that had God at the center that was healthy. And that was truly, yeah, a serious relationship, especially in this place where God has me now, where I've been spiritually matured and refined all these years. What if I mess it up, right? To desire something so much, but like to feel the same fear of what if it ends like all the others?
00:23:46
Speaker
What if I'm hurt like the others? Do I even know how to love and to receive love in a romantic relationship? I know. When you're alone, you get real, right? And it was something about those questions that, you know, I had been suppressing. I didn't even realize I was suppressing, guys. Like I wasn't trying to like lie or
00:24:15
Speaker
be disconnected from myself, but there was something about my routine and the busyness that made it so easy to even distract myself and to be completely out of sync with what was going on with myself internally. And the silence and the stillness made that so belaringly obvious. And so, you know, I'm sitting here and I wrote a poem
00:24:44
Speaker
And I don't have it in front of me. I would have loved to share it with you all. I might share it at another time. But it was really called, it was called Not It Entangled. And it was talking about the complexity of emotions that I'm feeling. Like there's both joy and there's both sorrow. There's hope and there's despair. And what does it look like to sit in the tension of all of that?
00:25:10
Speaker
In another one I talk about, unlike love, for those of you who don't know, when I am speaking to God and I'm having time with him, oftentimes I write out my prayers and my prayers write out like poems. And I was talking about how
00:25:29
Speaker
And going through all my past relationships and realizing there was such a desperate need to be loved. There was like a lack of confidence and a lack of self assurance of myself and realizing what I was desiring was something new and the fear in that, right? The fear in not really having been in a relationship where God was at the center, where I was in a healthy place and not wanting to revert or go back.
00:25:59
Speaker
But the last one is what really, really got me. And it's basically like a conversation I'm having with myself. It's myself and my heart, right? And I'm talking about how my heart is basically just screaming like, why don't you want me? Like, I'm part of you. I'm here to help you. Like, why are you denying me?
00:26:29
Speaker
Why are you pretending like I'm not crying? Why are you pretending that I'm not grieving and hurting? Like we are grieving and hurting. I am telling you this. Why won't you listen? And it's, for those of you who are similar to me where it is easier to meet others in their suffering
00:26:54
Speaker
to set aside everything to be present and to remind people that they need to sit in their suffering, but completely struggle with doing that yourself.
00:27:06
Speaker
because it cares in the concerns of others, just feels so much bigger and more important and are more urgent than what's going on inside of you. I'm here to tell you, if you don't deal with what is going on internally, maybe you don't use the language of your heart, maybe you use the language of your inner voice or your gut or whatever, but you have to pay attention. You have to listen.
00:27:35
Speaker
because unintentionally you can be doing more harm than good in others' lives. And so as I'm sitting there and both having to hear what's going on with me internally, but also apologize to the silencing I've done within myself,
00:27:55
Speaker
to the distancing and intentionally I've been doing with God. Because like, again, in this time of prayer, in this time of reflection, in this time of stillness, God's always been there. God's always been speaking. I haven't been able to hear him. But this inner voice in my heart, they were. They were in sync. I was just left outside of the loop, right? And that was by my own choice, even if I didn't realize that I was doing it, right?
00:28:23
Speaker
and so I'm spending hours sitting and crying and just honestly guys feeling very raw I wish I could tell you that like oh and then we tied it up and we wrapped up in a bow and now I'm healed and I'm like good to go no everything is still pretty raw I found that
00:28:43
Speaker
Like I said earlier, in this word of merge of where you are being called out to try new things, you're also having, I'm also having to address old things that God has, again, in His mercy and in His goodness, He has healed me from. The wounds aren't as deep.
00:29:01
Speaker
But because of the spiritual maturity that is happening within me, I'm engaging with them in a new and more profound way. In a way that if I was honest, years ago, while God was healing those wounds and the deep wounding, I wouldn't have been able to really process and handle this level of reflection. And all of these things, especially when it comes to relationships,
00:29:31
Speaker
how I relate to myself, how I'm relating to God, how I'm relating to my community, and how I wanna relate with my partner and my kids. God is really having me evaluate a lot of the chapters of relationships in my life. And it's hard, it's hard. But there's also joy in being able to name what I need in a relationship, what I desire,
00:30:02
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Talk about getting real y'all. Taking a breath.
Nature, Fear, and Spirituality
00:30:08
Speaker
And so after I'm doing all this reflection, I feel a prompting from the Holy Spirit of let's go around and walk into nature. Let's walk around nature.
00:30:22
Speaker
And I'm like, okay, I love hiking. I love going on trails, but typically I don't do that by myself or if I do, it's in West Virginia in trails that I've been to hundreds of times. Like I know kind of the same people I'll see. I know the terrain. I'm not really trying to do anything new or different by myself. And God, it's like, just trust me. And so I'm like, okay. So with wifi, I map out my route. I map out which park I'm going to.
00:30:51
Speaker
and kind of get a gist of the trails I'm gonna go on. And I set out and I drive. And so I parked the car, I'm contemplating, do I turn back? Like I technically made it to the park, like this is enough. And I'm like, no, I'm gonna be obedient, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna try.
00:31:10
Speaker
So I start walking on a trail. I found a trail. I'm a little tight like from my muscles after especially running the half marathon last year. I found that I really need to stretch a lot more and like how tight certain muscles in my body get. And I hadn't been doing my due diligence in making sure I was stretching and I was, I was going to be okay. So I did more of a lighter, a lighter trail.
00:31:38
Speaker
And so as I'm hiking through this trail, it's one of those trails where the trail is remotely clear, but you really have to rely on markers on the trees to make sure you're going in the right place.
00:31:53
Speaker
It's easy to get lost, right? And so as I'm going on this trail, there's certain parts where I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm so alone. If a mountain lion came out or a bear, what am I going to do? I have nothing, right? You kind of go to worst case scenarios, right? But as I'm going on this trail, that's like beautiful and uncomfortable.
00:32:15
Speaker
I'm navigating, I'm able to kind of figure out where I'm going and I keep walking and I keep going. Eventually I start to see people on the trail and I'm like, okay, cool. We know we're really on the right spot. We're going in the right direction. This is awesome.
00:32:29
Speaker
And I get to a part where I'm almost at the end of the trail, but it really wasn't what I was hoping for. You know, I wanted to see like an overlook or something amazing, so I make the decision to go back. As I'm making that decision to go back, I start to notice, huh, I'm not seeing any markers anymore. And the family that I had seen on my way down, I don't see them anymore.
00:32:55
Speaker
I know, worst fear unlocked, right? Worst case scenario. Now mind you, the trail, it's not that far away from the visitor center. It's not gonna be like a huge search party. But again, when you're feeling alone, when you're feeling by yourself, you feel very vulnerable. You're exposed, right? You're exposed to threats that you may be predicting or you may not be predicting. But in that moment when I was so aware of like, oh my gosh, I feel lost.
00:33:25
Speaker
This is what feeling lost looks like. This is what feeling vulnerable looks like, right? In a way that, you know, there's no planning, there's no map, I don't have signal. You know, you just have to pause, take a breath, look around, and wait until it makes sense, right? And so I remember I relied on markers to get to this part of the trail.
00:33:56
Speaker
I backtrack my steps until I see a familiar marker. When I turn, again, pause, I'm breathing, relaxing. And I look and lo and behold, markers that I didn't even notice, again, when I was kind of, again, singing to myself, spinning around in the woods, like me and nature. And I see, I'm like, oh my gosh, the markers are there, clear as day, right?
00:34:23
Speaker
And as I'm going through, I often have to backtrack because the one direction was very clearly marked. The other one, it was a little bit more spread out. But I'm finding myself having to be very intentional and being in tune to make sure that I'm not missing those markers. Can I tell you how much of a word there is in that?
00:34:44
Speaker
The fact that oftentimes, especially in ministry, especially when we are doing things or living out jobs or places where God has placed us and we can see God's fingerprint over every single thing, it can be so easy for us to completely miss what God is actually speaking to us in those moments. It's like, okay, cool God, you placed me here. You've given me this job. You've given me this opportunity. Now I can...
00:35:08
Speaker
I got it from here, right? I got it. I'm good, right? But no, we need to be in step with God, in step with God's Spirit, every step of the way, right? And coming back on this trail, it was never more apparent than now.
00:35:23
Speaker
So when I finally make it back, I am like jumping for joy. I'm super excited, but I'm still like, okay, I think I've got one more hike left in me. I know some of you guys are rolling your eyes like, come on, Crystal, let's keep it together. Another funny tidbit is that while I was on that trail, I kept hearing like a rattling noise and like there were a lot of different trees and everything. I was like, wow, these leaves, when the wind blows, it was very gusty. I was like, wow, they really rattle. Come to find out, there are rattlesnakes.
00:35:51
Speaker
on this trail. Praise God for not getting bit. But even in that, that's just, again, wild. Thank God for protecting us from things we don't even know. We don't even know.
00:36:05
Speaker
And so as I'm going on this other trail, it's definitely more of a trail as opposed to a hike. It's meant to be for kids. It's all about nature. But as I'm walking, I can see there's this beautiful little stream, and the water is crystal clear. And I'm looking, and it's when the sun is starting to set. And so you see the sun and the pinks
00:36:29
Speaker
and the clouds like peeking through the trees. And I'm just standing there just like, God, just what a gift it is to be in, again, in your creation, to be able to admire the work of your hands and to be reminded how big the world is beyond what I'm facing or what I'm experiencing right now. To be alone in the woods, but yet feel so connected, I can't explain it.
00:36:57
Speaker
I can't truly explain it, but there's just a warmth and a way of being seen that I just cannot explain beyond experiencing God in that moment. And so all this time as I've been walking through this trail up until now, I've been going against the stream, right? I'm not in the water, but the water is moving in the opposite direction of me.
00:37:20
Speaker
And as I'm turning and I'm walking back towards where I parked to head home, there was just something so peaceful and comforting about going in the direction of the stream.
00:37:33
Speaker
I realize that in so many areas of my life, I'm often the person that is going first, or is making the way, or is paving the way, and these are all good things. It's not that it's bad, but it can be so draining and so tiring if you are always in that position and in that role. And in that moment, especially as I'm leaning into the solitude, especially as I'm leaning into being still with God, mmm.
00:38:04
Speaker
It was a reminder that I can just follow him. That when it comes to him, I don't have to go up against the grain. I don't have to fight. I don't have to push through. I get to just be with him and to follow him and to move like I was following that stream. Some of you guys need to hear that.
00:38:32
Speaker
Some of you guys are like me where you feel like you're constantly having to go up against everything in your life. No, I'm not saying that, you know, on that trail, I met that man. I'm not saying that, I mean, hopefully, like I'm not, like I don't have kids and I'm not aware of it, right? My situation hasn't changed. My physical situation hasn't changed, but spiritually,
00:39:01
Speaker
When I am alone, I still, I still have an inner peace, a solitude of heart, where I know that God is meeting me there. It doesn't mean that I won't feel lonely. It doesn't mean that I won't feel sad sometimes, but there is a connection that is happening, mind, body, and spirit.
00:39:30
Speaker
with God that allows me to better know myself, better know God as my creator, and to be better in tune with His Spirit. Amen.
00:39:50
Speaker
So as I'm wrapping up the rest of this retreat, there were still so many more tears to cry and to shed. So many questions that, if I'm honest, weren't answered. But I was able to reconnect with my old friend. I was able to feel seen, to feel known.
00:40:18
Speaker
and to know that God is sitting with me in the midst of all of it. And that is what I needed. I needed to reconnect with myself to know actually what was going on within myself, within me. And I needed to reconnect with my old friend who was always willing to point me back to him so that I can better know myself.
Embracing Unresolved Questions
00:40:49
Speaker
So I wanted to leave you all with a quote that really sums up the posture that I'm in now. And I pray that it also encourages and blesses you as well. This is from Rainer Maria Rilke. Be patient toward all that is unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.
00:41:19
Speaker
like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers which cannot be given to you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then, gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.
00:41:50
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of United Not Uniform. My hope is that you feel encouraged, especially if you are feeling lonely or discouraged or are facing a challenging season. Please know that there is more than enough space for you to be seen and to see others. I'll see you all next time.