The Wilderness: A Path to Promise

By Bonita J. Robinson

The Wilderness: A Path to Promise accounts for Bonita’s spiritual descent from the mountain top of blessing, position, and influence into the abyss of isolation and separation. Bonita testifies that a spiritual wilderness is a space of extreme loneliness, trial, and overall discomfort. Bonita examples through her experiences that though God’s presence fills the wilderness, the enemy is there to tempt self-will and self-determination over God’s will and purpose. Bonita uses her story to encourage the reader to look inward at what is genuinely guiding their purpose. The book also challenges the question: What happens once you arrive at your promise?

Her story will interrupt hopelessness and offer a different perspective on how we characterize God’s will for our lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9781664278578

Bonita J. Robinson

Bonita J. Robinson is a teacher, writer, poet, blogger, and speaker. She is the president of PencilPerfect, LLC, Reflect the Write Way. She lives just north of the Outer Banks of NC with her husband, Michael. She has three children, Sterling, Chalssie, and Aj. And three beautiful grandchildren, Brianna Bonita, Sterling Banzette, Jr., and Alessia Jeanne.

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THE WILDERNESS

A PATH TO PROMISE

BONITA J. ROBINSON

Copyright © 2022 Bonita J. Robinson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means,

graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by

any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author

except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher

make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book

and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

844-714-3454

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in

this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views

expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the

views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English

Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry

of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-6642-7858-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-7859-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-7857-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022917322

WestBow Press rev. date: 11/02/2022

For my husband,

Michael.

You see me in my entirety and yet love me still.

For my children,

Sterling, Chalssie, and Alton (Aj).

You three are my muse.

For my grandbabies,

Brianna Bonita, Sterling Banzette JR., and Alessia Jeanne

You give me reasons to fight.

For my Mama and Mom

Barbara and Wilma

My war room strategist

For my sisters and brothers

Anissa, Nigel, Sabrina, Calvin, Rodney, and Ruthie

My Standing Army.

For my BFF Bobbi

My encourager

CONTENTS

Part 1: Subtractions

Introduction

Chapter 1     Unfettered Faith

Chapter 2     In Pursuit Of Promise

Chapter 3     Surely, I Took A Wrong Turn

Chapter 4     Walking A Tightrope

Chapter 5     Giants In The Land

Chapter 6     The Weight That I Carry

Part2: Rejection

Chapter 7     Pausing In Pain

Chapter 8     Forgiveness Wants A Say

Chapter 9     The Power To Choose

Chapter 10   Chasing The Illusion Of Perfection

Chapter 11   Generationally Speaking

Chapter 12   The Potter’s Hand

Acknowledgments

Notes

PART 1

SUBTRACTIONS

sub·trac·tion

/səbˈtrakSH(ə)n/

Subtractions By Bonita Robinson

She is from subtractions and additions;

the total of souls.

She is from 3 am watch parties;

habits like listening for the heartbeat of God

She is from sunrises whose dances dragged dead demons into sunsets; from standing just to sit in a narrative,

her pen did not write.

She is from seeds planted in haste and from reaping purchased with pride.

She is from many sisters;

mixed hues of deep browns, brick reds, burnt yellows, and bleachy whites.

She is from margins and mishandled edges;

marked out with red ink.

She is from the fragments of a broken frame.

From pieces of dreams stacked high with natural talent.

INTRODUCTION

I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO BE a writer. My earliest memories include creating stories. In high school, I wrote a story about Prince; I was his wife. It’s packed in a box somewhere around here if you ever want to take a gander. As I began to develop a relationship with God, I remember praying and asking God to allow me to write as Paul wrote an inspired holy word. Early in my marriage, God began to help me cultivate my writing. I was a very young mother of three and a stay-at-home mom; time was on my side. As a stay-at-home mother whose ministry was raising her family, intercessory prayer, and writing, I spent 99.9 percent of my time tending to my husband’s needs, interacting with my children, keeping my home, praying, and writing.

And I wrote. God inspired me, and I came close to finishing my first book. But as life began to unfold, I started the pursuit of other endeavors, one being education.

I did not entertain outside entities for the first five or six years of my marriage. My circle of influence was tiny back then. I pray that I am expressing this right. One thing is to have a relationship with God while insulated from the world. It’s a whole different thing to have a relationship with God while trying to maneuver around a career, keep a house, raise children, and remain connected to your husband. It’s a lot. Honestly, it was a lot before I started college and began teaching. But thirty-two years later, I am beginning to realize some things about us as women. And I pray that you will glean something from my story.

I have railroaded my goals throughout the years, both spiritual and natural aspirations. All because I thought that God requires perfection. And when I could not model perfection, I would derail. So then, in my infinite wisdom, I started classifying the things happening in my life. I would compartmentalize my life: marriage, children, relationship with God, college, and eventually teaching. But in doing so, when one thing went awry, it caused a domino effect, impacting all other areas in my life. The constant setting of things back and upright was exhausting, and it often left me emotionally depleted.

What I realize now is that our entire life is interconnected. The illusion of perfection is impossible relative to capturing a sparkly unicorn. What I ignored then was that my actions and persuasions, directly and indirectly, impacted every part of my being simultaneously. We say insane things like, If it happened at work, keep it at work. If it happened at home, leave it at home. And we teach this wayward thinking to our children. And we wonder why they can’t manage their feelings and emotions. It’s because an adult in their life either verbally says one thing does not have anything to do with the other or taught it to them by actions. What’s the universal answer we gave to our parents when they asked us the question, What happened at school today? What happened on your date last night? What happened at work? The universal response? Nothing! When, in reality, something happens but we choose not to say anything for fear of a domino effect.

I’ve spent my entire life trying to avoid the domino effect. In some seasons in my life, I have been Jairus. Entitled, influential, connected, and accepted, dropping to my knees, begging Jesus to intervene in some degree or another, but absent of a touch--no connectivity. Mostly, I have been crawling through the crowds of life, thinking I wasn’t good enough. And like you, I have touched Jesus many times and was made whole many times. But for whatever reason, I could not break free from living under the shadows of what everybody else thought of me. And there has been a price to pay.

What I know about myself is that I possess both spiritual and emotional infirmities. And they are all interconnected. I know that I carry the weight of them. And the burden of that weight, the importance of my emotional infirmities, continues to be impacting. And some days, my infirmities make me feel like an outcast. While other days, I dress them up and present them as wholeness. I have learned to wear the mask of contentment. I want to look into the mirror and see the truth. In this season, I have resolved to remove the cover of pretension. To be vulnerable. Not vulnerable to people but vulnerable in letting go of the pursuits of perfection. Letting go of the premise that inconsistency equals carelessness.

Healing is not pretty; getting there is not cute, and it’s okay. I desire the faith that says, for she said within herself, If I may touch his garment, I shall be whole (Matthew 9:21 KJV). See, friends, we know that Jesus is accessible. But we must stop accessing him like our bank accounts with a debit/credit card swipe. Because if we continue to treat him like our personal cash app, we will become emotionally overdrawn or emotionally indebted. He is accessible, but in a let us reason together sort of way. Jesus is in pursuit of a relationship with each of us. He desires to commune with us. I invite you to come on this journey with me. Together we shall find peace, strength, revelation, and unfettered faith that when connected with Jesus, we shall be made whole.

In our country, everything that we know as customary is transforming. Lord Jesus, I want unfettered faith. Uncertainty is the street we are all living on right now. In this season, you remain that one constant. Every day, governors, medical professionals, and our President provide the Nation with news updates on COVID-19 and everything that surrounds this virus: Supplies, tests, hospital beds, health care providers, vaccines, and the lack of vaccines, deaths, curves, plateaus, and peaks, the economy-unemployment, stimulus checks, police shootings of unarmed black men, protest, civil disobedience, voter suppression, insurrections, mass shootings, Supreme Court decisions and on and on-brings little comfort compared to the realization that more than a million people have died from COVID-19.

State of the Union updates are not preventing devastation from spreading like wildfire, and it does not seem to be slowing the casualties. In the most recent news, we live with the agony of yet another school shooting, with twenty-one dead, nineteen of them, were children. Ten African Americans in a racist attack were massacred five days before while shopping in a neighborhood Grocery. Two days later, in a church in California—one dead, and several were injured after a gunman opened fire on Taiwanese congregants. In 186 days, the US has experienced 314 mass shootings.

Every day, I pray, Lord Jesus, that we seek updates from You. You promised in your word that you would never leave or forsake us, Hebrews 13:5. You promised that the Holy Spirit is our Comforter, John 14:26. You promised that you would stick closer than a brother, Proverbs 18:24 and that you were a very present help in times of trouble, Palms 46:1. You promised that when we are weak, we could find strength in you 2 Corinthians 12:10. Lord, I pray that you speak to our fears. I pray that you blanket us with peace. While we walk through this wilderness, I pray that you will be our cloud by day and our fire by night. I pray that we remember that you are leading us through this. Every day, I pray that we seek Your face regarding our responsibilities, including how we speak and respond to each other. Let us be each other’s strength. Our eyes and our hearts are on You. Many pray that we can return to normal, but I pray that you will transform our thinking. I pray for universal unity and conformity to your word and heart. I pray that we will lean on each other