A Season in the Desert

By Samaria A. Wells

A Season in the Desert is a look at how God has used one season in a seemingly ordinary life to teach lessons about who we are and who He wants us to be. It discusses the challenges and frustrations of trying to live in a secular world while learning to trust completely in God. God takes us where we are at, no questions asked, and loves us even through the dark times in our lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 28, 2008
• ISBN: 9781462837137

Samaria A. Wells

Although growing up in a Christian household I never really understood what it was like to have a personal relationship with God until well into my college years. Somewhere along the line, I realized I needed more out of my life and was fortunate enough to have someone show me that what I was missing was God. However, like many Christians, I fell away from God. For some reason, it seems harder to get where know you should be than to end up there seemingly by accident. However, in Gods plan, there are no accidents.

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Copyright © 2008 by Samaria A. Wells.

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Contents

PREFACE

CHAPTER 1 The Chair

CHAPTER 2 The Lost Love Interest

CHAPTER 3 Oh Joshua!

CHAPTER 4 Out, Safe, Time!

CHAPTER 5 A New Year Begins

CHAPTER 6 The New Neighbor

CHAPTER 7 What Happens in Mexico

CHAPTER 8 The Inner Struggle

CHAPTER 9 Jenny What Have I Done?

CHAPTER 10 New Year’s

CHAPTER 11 A Match Made in Heaven?

CHAPTER 12 A Connection At Last!

CHAPTER 13 Me and God

CHAPTER 14 Just Another Israelite Lost in the Desert

CHAPTER 15 Where Do I Go From Here?

A TEMPORARY FAREWELL

DEDICATION

This manuscript is dedicated to everyone who helped shape me, both in ways I wanted to be molded, and in ways I didn’t, for out of every experience, I learned a valuable lesson about life, who I am, and who I want to be. A special dedication is made to my best friend Kelley, who loved and accepted me before she even knew anything about me. Only a friend sent from God would still accept me for who I am and love me even more after really getting to know me. Kelley, I am forever grateful and thankful for you!

PREFACE

Growing up, I thought every Christian had to be perfect. If you weren’t then God didn’t accept you and you were destined for hell. It was indirectly preached to me constantly as a child that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23 NIV) but no one ever told me the second part of that verse, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. It would be years later, actually while I was in college, before that would really be clear to me. True, there are consequences for our sinful behavior, but God is also a forgiving God. I am not destined to go to hell because I am not perfect. You have no idea how glad I am to know that.

I remember listening to various speakers at retreats and conferences in high school and college. Those people were brought in to reach the lost souls—to share their story of salvation. The only problem was that they never related to me. I wasn’t a lost soul or at least I didn’t think so. I wasn’t someone who was brought up outside the church, who got involved with drugs and alcohol or prostitution and then one day found Christ and had a wonderful life-changing story to tell. No, I was a typical church girl. I was raised in the church because that’s what my Mom thought was best for me (although she didn’t attend herself) and I was brought up to fear the consequences of disobedience. I learned at a young age how to respect my elders and most importantly, to never talk back. Unfortunately, this also taught me to never stand up for myself either. While I am getting better about it, I still tend to practice a yes ma’am, no ma’am attitude about many things, especially with my family. I admit I am a people pleaser, and at times, a push-over. I don’t voice my opinion or share my feelings because I don’t want to hurt anyone else.

As I got older and learned what it really meant to have Christ in my life and accept Him as my personal Lord and Savior, I realized that I can never be perfect, but God loves me anyway. That didn’t mean that I could just throw caution to the wind and do as I pleased without taking into consideration my Christian values and effects of my behavior on other people, but at least I knew I wasn’t a lost cause. Unfortunately, as many people do, even after seeing the Christian life, I fell away.

It frustrates me, how I have seen the truth, yet still elect to participate in a life full of sinful behavior. I know what I should do, yet I feel as if at times, I am not in control of my own life. The devil takes a strong hold of me, when I should be the strongest, and it seems I often fail, not always, but more than I would like to admit. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. (Romans 7:15 NIV)

As a child, I believe I was fairly well behaved. I think part of this was because I feared consequences, particularly the wrath of Mom. As I look back, I am not sure that I would say I did terrible things before truly knowing Christ, but I know that I have struggled immensely even after knowing Christ, with always making the right decisions. Perhaps I am now just more in tune with it. Perhaps now I actually realize when I am out of alignment in my walk with Christ, where I never noticed it before. One would think that perhaps the fear of God would or should be enough to keep me in line with my Christian faith, that it should be enough to keep me on the straight and narrow. What I need to remind you of, is that as a kid, I feared consequences. This actually was similar to fearing God today, but as a kid, I never felt the forgiveness that Christ offers and gives to us as we repent. Knowing the disappointment I brought to my mother without feeling any chance of being forgiven, was much more petrifying than knowing that I have disappointed God, but that He provides unconditional love. I guess the difference is behaving out of fear of my mother as I did as a kid, and behaving out of love and respect for God as I want to do now.

My goal through this book is healing. There are many issues in my life that although seem petty to the outsider, have caused much turmoil in my own life, because of who I want to be and who God wants me to be. I must deal with them. Confessing these, I believe, is the first step towards freeing me from these chains I carry around. God has forgiven me for my transgressions, now I must learn to accept that forgiveness, and put these issues behind me.

CHAPTER 1

The Chair

At one time in my life, a very good friend of mine had always told me that everything happens for a reason. Well, as much as I’d like to accept that, it really is not an easy phrase to believe, especially when the issue of sin comes into play. However, I think deep down, she was probably right.

Supposedly, the three best things about being a school teacher are June, July and August. My schedule in the summer really doesn’t slow down at all. I typically play softball and take on a couple of part time jobs. The extra income in the summer is nice, but honestly, I just hate to have nothing to do. I get bored after a while without a schedule. Even though I enjoy the time off from school in the summer, I still enjoy the rigor of a routine. While I do enjoy the change of pace and break away from the classroom, I’m not all that sure this particular summer was the best thing for me.

Prior to the school year ending for summer break, I had joined a small group Bible study through my church. We were going to read Really Bad Girls of the Bible by Liz Curtis Higgs. This was a fun read and I would recommend it to anyone looking for an easy to read study on the women of the Bible.

During one of our first discussion nights we talked about the chair. The idea of the chair was to look at your life and see where you were at with various different people. We all have different influences on the many people in our lives. The Bible tells us that we are to be witnesses to Christ. Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity. (Ephesians 5:15-16 NIV) The goal in this session was to determine where we were at in our relationships in regards to the chair. You could either be standing on a chair, or sitting on the floor. If you were sitting on the floor that meant that you had someone overseeing you, perhaps looking out for you and trying to build you up spiritually. Those were good friends to have, the kind who lift you up and are positive influences on you. If you were standing on the chair looking down, your friends perhaps were not as spiritually stable as you, or may not be the best influence, but you had a chance to impact them for Christ, a chance to pull that friend up. We were asked where we would rather be. Which is the better position to be in? Would you rather sit on the floor or stand on the chair?

While it seems like standing on the chair would be good—knowing that you had a strong spiritual relationship, it also has a downside. Think about pulling a friend up who is sitting on the floor. Is it easier to pull them up? Or is it easier for them to pull you down? I’m not a science whiz, but anyone can tell you that it is much easier to pull someone off a chair if you are sitting on the floor than it is to pull someone off the floor if you are standing on a chair. Unfortunately, as the floor dweller, we also carry the guilt of knowing that we are not as strong as we should be, and knowing that we are pulling people down around us. I decided that in my relationships, I wanted to be standing on the chair, and I wanted to be strong enough to stand there, even as others pulled me down from various directions. Most of my friends didn’t attend church, and I honestly felt that I was the stronger person, spiritually, in my friendships. I thought that I was pretty stable on my chair. It didn’t take long that summer to realize just how easy it would be to get pulled off.

I’m not really sure why I started attending these Bible studies. Perhaps it was a desire to have a stronger church family, or that deep down I knew I needed to be around stronger Christians. Perhaps it was my innermost being searching for more, because I knew there was more out there than what I had. Whatever it was that originally got me there, it wasn’t enough to keep me going strong.

At one of our weekly studies later in the summer, we began discussing presentation, how you present yourself to others. On this particular evening, I was wearing a sleeveless shirt with a V-neck that came down perhaps a little lower than I would have liked, yet still it didn’t really reveal anything that shouldn’t be revealed. Quite honestly, it is difficult to find modest clothing anymore. I was planning on going out with a friend after the study and dressed for the warm weather of the summer—and yes, I will admit, I could have worn a T-shirt to go out in, but this was a little more attractive at least in what the world views as attractive. While the discussion continued, members of the group were making comments that although were not directly aimed at me, I felt as if they could have been. I felt as if I was being judged, and perhaps I should have been, but I probably would have responded better to someone pulling me aside and commenting rather than having the whole group make remarks and look in my direction. I had really enjoyed the group up to that point, but now I no longer felt accepted for who I was. From there on out, I participated less in each discussion and while I still attended each study, I was counting down the weeks until it was over. When the group decided to do another study on a different book, I quietly stepped out of the group, providing only scheduling conflicts as my reason for not returning. Honestly though, I just wasn’t comfortable anymore being with a group whom I felt would forever critique me. Unfortunately, I probably needed this support group even more as I was about to face a very trying summer that would end up changing my whole outlook on life, except I didn’t know it at the time.

CHAPTER 2

The Lost Love Interest

You know how it is when you find yourself reflecting on life and wondering what went wrong with that once upon a time love-interest? Yeah. Well, I do too. It wasn’t long after the school year was over and an old friend contacted me via e-mail. Not just any friend, one whom I’d been interested in back in college. Of