Wild!!

I sat down and watched the movie by this name on Friday night. It is about a girl / young woman in her 20's who found herself in a place of emotional pain and she was just plain lost after her mother died from cancer. She went a little 'wild' and gave herself over to a lifestyle of drugs and unrestrained living, and then when she had had enough, she decided to enter a whole new world of pain and to hike the Pacific Crest trail - which runs the length of the USA from Mexico to Canada through California, Oregon and Washington State. This place of isolation, and hiking 4 270km through desert, snow and mountains, somehow helped her to heal emotionally and deal with her demons. I think it took her over 3 months, and she met a few people along the way. The one thing that lost me along the story, though, was there was no real resolution at the end. She didn't settle down and there was no real indication that she had found her healing, had made peace with her life or that she was able to rest and settle down.

I guess I share this story with you as my own is a little similar in some ways. I lost my own dear mother to cancer when I was 29 years old and I had a rough few years following. My mum was the centre of our family and my dad didn't cope well afterwards - he went on and off antidepressants for a few years there. Another friendship broke down in that time and I also had a few health issues. And so I went searching for God.... Not in unrestrained and wild living, as the main character in the story did, but I attended a Christian youth conference as a volunteer and decided to simply take some time out. In my story, one thing led to another and I ended up on a ministry trip to South Africa that absolutely changed my life. That was kind of wild!! We had a lot fun overseas, we worshipped and I discovered the power of the Holy Spirit and the gift of prophecy for the first time. Coming home, I simply knew things needed to change and so I left the church I grew up in and made a new beginning. God was in the details.

Jeremiah 29:13

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

I tried the same thing after my father died and I also had a bit of rough few years for other reasons. The trip to Africa (Malawi this time) didn't quite work in the same way! But one thing led to another (as it often does) and I found myself just a few (67.8) miles form the Pacific Crest trail in California at a school of Christian ministry. One year out with long service leave became three and it was indeed quite 'wild' in its own right. At times, the worship was unrestrained, free, emotional, lacking a little bit or reason, but my time there was also very healing and with plenty of time to rest from my burn out and to connect with God in new ways.

It was all a little crazy and beyond my normal sense of reason, especially going back for a third year (given the cost of supporting myself) and I actually received a prophetic word myself - just one word, "Wild", as an indication of what was ahead in my third year. Indeed it was. I found myself, within days of arriving in the US, being invited to go to the east coast to help clean up after a hurricane (I didn't go as I was totally unprepared). I went to Las Vegas on the leadership team of 70 other students to help a church to heal after a mass shooting (you can call me Pastor Heidi!), and I found myself preparing some training material over 6 months that was used to train many volunteers who poured out over 1000 volunteer hours after a bushfire that occurred locally in the area not long after I came home. And many hours in prayer meetings. Not bad for a school year!

As I type this, I am also listening to a worship song, "Lord I am amazed by you". Yes, I am amazed at my time in the States and looking back a few years down the track, it doesn't even sound real. But it was. Over 3 years I found healing for my heart and I discovered a deeper relationship with God that I wouldn't have thought possible beforehand. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I felt like I had a choice after each of my parents died. A choice to run towards God or to run away. I needed to do something in each instance - things were just not in a good place for me, and I needed change or at least a good break.

With the movie, 'Wild' I was watching, it seemed that the ending felt empty. She just walked back into 'the real world' at the end of the movie. There was no mention of how she found healing for her heart, except through her time out, isolation and the physical pain of endless hiking on the trail.

After my own time in California, I believe I will never be the same. It is not though my own pain and suffering though, but through the grace of the one who came and suffered and willingly gave his own life on that cross 2000 years ago for me, that I might find life - a real, somewhat wild life - even today. This is my story twice over.

Galations 5:1

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Isaiah 55: 1,3,6,8-9 (TPT)

“Listen! Are you thirsty for more?

Come to the refreshing waters and drink. Even if you have no money, come, buy, and eat. Yes, come and buy all the wine and milk you desire— it won’t cost a thing.

Pay attention and come closer to me, and hear, that your total being may flourish. I will enter into an everlasting covenant with you, and I will show you the same faithful love that I showed David.

Seek the Lord Yahweh when he makes himself approachable; call upon him when you sense he is near. “For my thoughts about mercy are not like your thoughts, and my ways are different from yours. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so my ways and my thoughts are higher than yours.

Matthew 11: 28-30

“Come to me,all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Ephesians 3: 17-19

...And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

His ways are truly not like our ways and his thoughts are higher. Just as well. His love though, is complete - and just a little 'wild'. It is a life and love that I want to pursue....