Oh, these motherhood days, what a contrast they’re proving to be.

There are moments of lush joy…

baby smiles
toddler conversations
knowing glances between this wife and her husband

But some days the dust and sand of it all start blowing in. Thick and fast until it’s all I see.

No one ever wants their life (or creativity, or relationships, or spirit) to become a desert, do they? Deserts are places of Desolation. Aridity. Isolation.

 

 

But I’m learning not to hate, but to embrace these desert places.

Like every desert I’ve been in, I’ve realised that for all they lack, deserts teem with life and the terrain is sharply beautiful.

 

The sand has scrubbed the air clean.
The stars are so bright you’re kept awake in wonder.
The stillness is heavy, drawing you in.

 

And it’s only when I’m in a desert place that the questions I ignore are allowed to rise in my soul…

Can I really matter?

And it’s only because I’m in the desert that I have pause enough to hear the answer…

“You came out here searching with a question, and I came out here looking for you with the answer! I’ve never quit loving you and I never will. Expect love, love and more love.” [Jeremiah 31:2-3]

 

 

So if the desert is where you find yourself today, I encourage you to open your soul to God, breathe the clean air, embrace the pause and let His love remind you again and again…

 

“I am enough for you always, even in this place.”

 

 

 

Images by Chantelle Malone Creative and Whisky Winter from their 2014 Morrocan adventure. (You guys need to go back – been too long!)