Recently, my minister asked me to a testimony about being in the figurative wilderness. After prayer and much thoughtful consideration, I contemplated what the wilderness meant to me. It reminded me of my drive from Washington to Utah and the vastness that I drive through. It is there in the wilderness that is I-84 that I have learned to trust in God for protection and provisions. Included is my testimony that I gave to the congregation at Cornerstone UMC in Covington, Washington. https://buildingonjesus.org/

This is my testimony

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NyH9mDYECk  Elevation Church’s song, “My Testimony”.

We own a home in Northern Utah and have family in the area. Therefore, we travel from our home in Maple Valley to the Cache Valley in Utah a couple of times a year. On this route, we travel some isolated sections of the interstate. The most barren is I-84 in Northern Utah. Before we hit this section of the road, we stop in Twin Falls, Idaho for fuel and provisions. Once we make that turn south, services become scarce, cell phone coverage is weak, and the weather is indecisive.  But the grace of God, we have never broken down in this section of our trip. However, we have broken down twice on this route but in more habited areas where we could receive assistance.

This stretch of remote, American highway signifies something else to me. It is a faith barometer. If I’m honest, this road makes me nervous. What if we do breakdown and there is no service area nearby or we can’t get a call for help out to someone? But that has never happened. I forget that even though there are very few services areas, weak cell coverage, and unpredictable weather, God is on that road. He is in the vast wilderness.

I have walked through a spiritual wilderness

In my life, I have walked through spiritual wildernesses. Through seven military deployments, when my son had a seizure on an airplane on a cross country flight, when another son was attacked by a dog and required emergency surgery, and when son number 3 fell out of a second-story window and needed to be life-flighted. In the back of an ambulance with your kid is a wilderness. Giving birth in a foreign country while your husband is deployed can feel like a wilderness. I have felt alone, rejected, scared, unsure, and ill-equipped while in the wilderness. But all along, God was there.

My spiritual walk is a growing process. I have learned many lessons along that desolate stretch of I-84. God has never abandoned me there or anywhere else. His provisions never run out. There is no place that God isn’t with me. He is the service area, the cell coverage, and the weatherman on any wilderness road we find ourselves on, both figuratively and literally.

A highway for our God

I am often reminded of Isaiah 40: 3-5

A voice is calling,

“Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness;

Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God.

“Let every valley be lifted up,

And every mountain and hill be made low;

And let the rough ground become a plain,

And the rugged terrain a broad valley;

Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed,

And all flesh will see it together;

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

We will find ourselves in a spiritual wilderness at some point in our lives. But we are never alone or without provisions. When we remain faithful, we have all we need.