Growth Found in the Wilderness
Table Talk
Setting the Table
You are welcome here. Come just as you are, bringing whatever is on your heart today. Take a few moments and allow yourself to just be. Take a couple deep breaths, grab yourself a cup of coffee, light a candle, do something that brings you comfort. Allow yourself to be present in this moment.
Consider what it might mean for you to understand your wilderness experiences through a lens of openness, wonder, and surrender, rather than fear and trepidation.
“People who empty themselves in the wilderness always meet a God who is greater than they would have dared to hope.”
- Richard Rohr
“Into the wilderness, I go to lose my mind and find my soul.”
- John Muir
Matthew 11:7-9
As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: ‘What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.’
Food for Thought
Wilderness experiences come in so many shapes and sizes. There are times when we journey into the wilderness with intention, looking for rest and reflection — for solitude and renewal; and then sometimes the wilderness comes to us when we really don’t want it. Most often, wilderness is wide and wild and completely unpredictable.
In the wilderness, we find ourselves utterly vulnerable to life as we dreamed it would be or thought it never would be. We birth life, and grieve loss, learning to walk and live without those we thought would always be here. And many of us pray more fervently, although we may be unaware of it at the time.
We struggle to know what to do with our wilderness spaces and experiences. We use words like “wild” and “forbidden” to describe it, but what if our discomfort with wilderness isn’t actually a problem with the wilderness at all but rather with us — with our interpretations of it — with our stereotypes of such places as places of exile or spaces of lifelessness?
The wilderness reminds us that things usually aren’t as simple or as one-dimensional as we might wish they were. Do we call it wild because we haven’t figured out how to conquer it? Do we find it forbidden because we simply do not understand it? The wilderness can be trying and terrifying, but the wilderness can also be renewing and restorative.
The call of the wilderness — when we are in the midst of it — asks us to think more deeply, more broadly, and more honestly about the ways these wilderness places and experiences open us up to God.
The wilderness is a place where we can’t rely on the familiar, which can seem like a hardship, but it might also be an invitation — an invitation into the full reality of our existence, an invitation into the truth and beauty of our vulnerability, an invitation to know deeply the faithfulness of The God who sees.
Jesus asks, “What do you go into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? A priest in soft clothes?”
No — we go to see the one who prepares the way;
the one who moves through the wilderness with hope;
the one that baptizes and calls us to repentance;
the one who meets us in our wilderness spaces with words of life.
Over and over, God’s people are led out of the wilderness to springs that flow with water, and somehow, there is enough sustenance for all who journey there. All manner of life find a home amidst the untamed terrain.
As we move through our own wilderness spaces, we find our hope in the promise that this is true for us, too. That the God who sees also meets us and carries us along this wilderness journey.
All of us.
Our Welcoming Growth summer series is also accompanied by our free journaling page. This resource offers seven daily prompts that you can use with each reflection of the eight-week series. Let these prompts guide you into seeing ways that you can cultivate growth within yourself and the world around you.
Feel free to print the journaling page, forward it to a friend, use it as inspiration for your own journaling practice (or group conversations), or maybe just a food for thought in your quiet time.
We hope you enjoy our Welcoming Growth Journaling Page!
Blessing
Loving God,
Be with us as we navigate the spaces in which we feel lost and scared.
Help us to lean into the possibilities that these spaces allow for us;
to rely on your guidance;
to find you in the midst of our wandering.
A little Table Talk for your table...
When you are in the midst of a wilderness space, what feelings do you experience? To whom or what do you turn? Share this with a friend.
Talk about the most positive thing you have discovered about yourself or God during one of these times.
If you are currently wandering through a wilderness, do you find it difficult to feel God with you?
Try taking it to the Kids Table...
Ask your child to tell you about a time that they felt lost. What happened? Did they get separated from people they were with? Perhaps it was a time they didn’t know how to solve a problem.
How did they handle the situation?
Ask them what they learned during their time in this “wilderness." What tools do they now have to prepare them for a similar situation in the future?
Meet Our Welcoming Voice!
The Welcome Table Team - We are “The Bunce Girls!” Originally from Lexington, North Carolina, we were raised surrounded by music, justice, and faith. We spent most of our Sunday afternoons gathered around an open table with family and friends where the food was plentiful, stories and laughter connected our hearts, and where the presence of each individual was held sacred. It’s those moments that have inspired The Welcome Table.
To hear more from the TWT Team throughout the week, follow along on our Instagram!
Here are Five Things to Remember When Setting Your Own Welcome Table!
If you have a story that you would like to be included as a Reader's Write feature, we'd love to hear from you! Message us on our contact page or email us at thewelcometableco@gmail.com.