Freedom...

Two years ago I finished my Holy Yoga Teacher Training by going on a retreat to Mexico. I spent five days in a beach house, surrounded by people with the same heart and desire as mine.

It was a time of growth and preparation for me. When I came home I was filled and overflowing. I was actually enjoying my life and my marriage.

A few weeks later I found out that my husband was carrying a deep addiction to pornography.

And in a single moment I was drained of joy and hope.

I entered liminal space.

A desert.

And I have been standing on the threshold, caught between emptiness and being filled, since then.

Recently, my husband has experienced an immense amount of freedom. His heart has been transformed and he is being pieced back together.

He is being filled.

But I am still empty.

Last week I went on another Holy Yoga retreat. This time to serve.

I went to lead the morning devotionals and meditations.

I had spent the month before preparing, not really by researching and piecing teachings together, but by living.

We went through the Beatitudes.

I went through the Beatitudes.

First surrendering to God's Way, laying aside my way.

Learning to be content with who I am, no more and no less. Reconciling who I have been and who I am to the blood of Jesus.

Entering into a dry space; a desert of hunger and thirst, with the promise that I would be filled.

Learning mercy, purity and peace.

Knowing that, as I shift and stretch, the world will cease to recognize me and I will be persecuted, pressed hard against and left out.

All of this for a promise. A blessing. A hope.

All of this so that I cease to live for myself and enter into an unending, overflowing, filled life.

One night on the retreat we had a bonfire.

We each wrote down something that we were leaving behind and threw it into the fire. And then we claimed something that we were taking home with us.

I wrote down, "my resistance in my marriage."

I claimed peace.

And on the last day of the retreat, we practiced yoga one last time.

And this class was unbelievable.

It was overwhelmingly powerful.

It was more of a worship service than a yoga practice.

And I was crushed by the thick and tangible presence of God. I started to cry and I didn't know why.

Until I realized that I have been in liminal space for two years.

I have been barely surviving.

Hope has not been readily available to me.

Peace has been distant.

Joy has been a faint memory.

And the moment I realized my spiritual state, it changed.

I stepped over a threshold into a wide expanse of joy.

I was finally filled.

I hadn't realized until that moment how empty and heartbroken I have been.

There was no way for me to move into hope in my marriage.

There was no way for me to enjoy my life again.

Because I was being held and transformed in a place of nothingness.

For my deliverance.

A few moments later a woman named Amy came over to me, knelt down and began to rub my feet.

She looked into my face and said, "Thank you for serving".

And I couldn't see Amy.

I only saw Jesus.

I heard his voice.

I knew he was saying, "thank you for serving in liminal space."

And my heart broke free.

I am free.

I am joyously free.

After this class Brooke read a psalm that has become the song of my heart.

When the LORD brought back the captives to Zion, we were like men who dreamed. Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, "The LORD has done great things for them." The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy. Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like streams in the Negev. Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him. Psalm 126

I have sown in tears.

I have spent two years in a dry desert, watering the fragile seeds of God's promises with my tears.

And in one week he broke open the ground of my heart with strong, healthy stalks of joy.

I've been in exile.

Desperate for rescue.

And I am returning, full and carrying sheaves of joy in my arms.

Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

Psalms 139:7-12

I like stories.

I like the details that fill the stories.

And I love the end of a story.

I love when everything comes together; heroes conquer; beauty is restored; truth crushes the lie.

I dream in stories.

I think in stories.

I talk in stories.

Everything connects to something else.

There is a beginning, an intense in between, and a glorious ending.

My whole existence revolves around stories.

My entire faith is based on a story.

Jesus the hero.

God the powerful and noble.

The Spirit of truth and comfort.

This is a story of creation.

Of selfish gain.

Of redemption.

Of wandering.

Of pursuit.

Of fear.

Of lonliness.

Of questioning.

Of forgiveness.

Of going the wrong way.

Of being blinded to find the right Way again.

Of uncertainty.

Of healing.

Of being beaten.

Of being saved.

Of deception.

Of betrayl.

Of weeping.

Of joy.

Of mercy.

Of hope.

Of promise.

Of life.

Overflowing life.

This makes me think of a quote I read by JRR Tolkien.

"Not all who wander are lost."

Beautiful.

Faith is a journey.

At times I am truly wandering.

I seem aimless.

Uncertain.

I am perilously close to wandering right off a cliff.

But I am not lost.

Wherever I am; whatever I am encountering, it is for one thing only.

My deliverance.

When my husband left and I couldn't figure out how to put one foot in front of the other, I was stuck in the grip of God's love.

When I tried to take my own life, I was swirling around in the whirlwind of God's love.

When I am tired and lonely and distraught, I am staring straight into the brightness of God's love.

Because there is nowhere I could run; nothing I could do to escape God's love.

This is why I love stories.

This is why faith IS a story.

We are still being written.

And all of these weird, crazy, awful details will come to a point of glorious deliverance in the end.

Even though we are wandering, we are not lost.