What if the wilderness wasn't the end......

I was looking through an old journal this morning.. 
Truth be told it was a journal that I had started, but not finished.  I found my way to it because my current journal wasn’t within reach...  

I found an entry from way back in 2008 that struck my heart so deeply I had to sit on it for a minute.  

“What would happen if we understood that the wilderness is actually the beginning of the journey.  The beginning of a deeper place of knowing who we are.  Being loved and loving with more clarity because of where we are in that place.  Listening to love’s voice in a new way....Being stripped of all the things that can’t be taken into the wilderness.  

The beginning of a new....

What would happen to my heart’s aching to be known and to know.  What would it do to my struggle to remain in the place where I am standing....

Just at the edge of that wilderness... that point of decision of whether to go or stay.

How would it change how my eyes are focused and how my heart chooses?

On the things that I cannot take with me...

On the things waiting for me there in the wilderness - or on the other side of it.....

On how my life will change forever because of my choice to go or to stay.....

On how my heart will be opened to love and to life and to identity in ways deeper than I can imagine in this moment of choice.....

What would happen...
If I saw the beckoning into the wilderness by love, not at a trick, but as an invitation to the deeper waters that lay hidden there?”

Pretty good entry right?  I sat there and just stared at the page and tried to remember where I was when I wrote it.... who I was when I wrote it....  
I don’t know that right now that truly matters.  What does matter is that I am once again in a place of choice.  To stay or to go..... How will it change me? 

Let this be a year of making the choice to step into the places where we let go and learn the greater places of love.  Let this be the year when we see places of struggle as opportunities to let go of things that we don’t need... distractions, things... 

What does your “wilderness” look like?  Stand in that place and look around... really look around.  Let it become a place of adventure and discovery.  Let if be place of honesty with yourself and with others. 

Let your perceptions of wilderness shift and open up. Let the most important thing you take with you be love.  Real, authentic love..... Let that love guide you through and to the other side.  Be honest... be kind... be patient with yourself as with those around you....

Love’s voice will change you... but change is good.