April showers ☔️ are supposed to bring May flowers 🌷
But what happens when you don't get rain in April?
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Drought, when there are no rains, you get Drought
For the last 3+ years we have lived with drought conditions. I can’t say that empirically, as I have not researched the rainfall stats. But according to my observations of almost dry sloughs and ponds, of not having to carry a rain jacket or umbrella while spending many hours outdoors and comments from farming friends, I am going to say it is true. It’s been so dry in the forests that we were having forest fires in early May which means the fire season would have been twice as long as usual and we could have been in a fire ban for months. It was oppressive, hot, tiring and discouraging, not to mention dangerous (in previous years fires raged out of control).
When the world around you doesn’t get enough water, it can feel oppressive and decreases one’s energy level. It causes the need to conserve and only do what is necessary. Demands that we cut the extras and only do the basics. Living in drought doesn’t give you any margin or wiggle room. So most of the day and most of your energy is taken up with simply getting what you need to survive.
A season of spiritual drought or desert season mimics the reality of life with little water.
You only do the necessary tasks to get through your day. Things take a lot more effort and you have to adjust the way you do them to compensate. You have to think harder about each task and it takes longer because of lack, sometimes creativity is stifled because there isn’t any capacity for it. And sometimes you just can’t do the things you usually do or want to do because you don’t have what you need.
I feel I have just lived through a spiritual drought or desert season and the natural world has been reflecting my spiritual journey.
It has been dry, oppressive, hard and I have just been in survival mode
A couple years ago, circumstances disrupted and changed the way I had been living out faith and life. That threw me into a state of change and transition. It has been a long season and has felt unrelenting. It’s been a season that has felt spiritually hard and barren. Things that used to be easy weren’t anymore and things kept shifting around me so I couldn’t figure out which way to go.
All of a sudden I was looking out at this vast landscape of life without a trail or pathway that was visible and no peace about taking steps in any direction. It looked like I was standing on the edge of a desert where the sand was constantly being shifted by the wind and any road or trail was covered and quickly hidden. I knew that I was in a time of transition but the way forward was hidden as my discontent and weariness grew.
Walking by Faith
I have followed Jesus since my early teens and I have spent it going where the Lord has told me to go, so I wasn’t a stranger to stepping out in faith or change. Previous steps of faith were taken with affirmation and a solid understanding that I was moving along the path that Jesus wanted me on. Moments of doubt were always bracketed by a solid sense of peace, purpose and going the right direction.
This last season felt SO different. It felt like I was sitting in a barren land being battered by things I couldn’t control. Even as I watched the sloughs and ponds around Alberta slowly drain of water, I was slowly draining of energy and vision. I wanted to have more energy, creativity and focus but couldn’t get a sense of how to do that and didn’t have the usual peace about what was happening. Just like the ponds couldn’t fill themselves, I couldn’t fill my vision tank either.
It was also a very stationary season, one where I couldn’t move. I lived at the same location, had the same job and not much changed about my life. I felt stuck and every time I tried to move out of that place, I was being held in place and things I had previously relied on were being stripped away.
It was dry, oppressive, hard and I was just sitting there trying to survive
Slowly things started to change and move but there was so much stress, it was oppressive and hard and I still didn’t feel like I was getting out of that spot. I went through major changes with my employment and my brother-in-law died in January and still I was stuck. The desert was oppressively endless even as there were incremental movements in and around me.
Then I figured out I was actually in a HALLWAY! One long enough I couldn’t see the end!
I had been standing spinning in circles trying to figure out where the path was so I could get out of the desert when I needed to be focusing on how to travel along a dark hallway. Finding the path didn’t matter I just needed to be pointed in the right direction, cause a hallway has walls where a desert doesn’t.
In January I started reading devotional called The Threshold by Craig Cooney (@daily.prophetic). It’s about changing seasons, moving through transitions and stepping over the threshold of the old and into something new. It gave me helpful and hopeful language for this stuck feeling. Cooney wrote about how we often have to step over the threshold of the old way straight into…a HALLWAY.
BUT…we were not expecting a hallway. We were expecting the new thing to be on the other side of the threshold. However we have to walk the length of that hallway before we get to the next threshold and step into something new.
I just cried the day I read that. That was ME!
I had been stepping out of old things and expecting to jump right into the new ones, as I had in the past. But the Lord had a different threshold, a longer season of transition for me. It started WAY before even a glimmer of change or movement was suspected in my world. Carried on through turmoil, stress and some serious reckoning in my life. And has housed me as I have taken small steps towards the new things have started to emerge and become visible. It wasn’t a big jump through that doorway but a series of consistent and small steps that the Lord has been orchestrating to get me to the next threshold.
That hallway felt dark and scary and endless but I am starting to see way-points and markers of the Lord’s faithfulness as I look back and am praying I will get to step over that next threshold soon. I have not been good at embracing this hallway. I have actually worked to escape it, ignore it, discredit it, rail at it and allow frustration with it to overwhelm me. I have been a very reluctant hallway dweller. And I pray that didn’t negate what the Lord wanted to do in this season.
Am I still in a desert season spiritually? Yes and No.
I have not yet crossed that next threshold which would be the way out of the desert season. So Yes, I am still in something of a dry, barren season and No, as the oppression of the spiritual desert has lifted and shifted and I can look back to see where the Lord has faithfully provided.
Is there still drought around me physically? Yes and No.
We did not see May flowers in the physical because we didn’t see April showers. We saw May rains bring June flowers (and more rains), which has made everyone marvel at how often they mow their lawns and how lush their gardens are because we have finally gotten the moisture we have longed for and needed. So Yes, we still need more rain in order to fend off continued drought and No, as the relief of having the initial rains come has been palpable.
Am I still in that long dark hallway? Yes and No.
Yes, I am still in the hallway. I am still so tired, have very little to give to anyone or anything and I still can’t see where I am heading. And No, as I have seen miracles in this season and rejoiced in those and I have renewed hope as I can feel the wall beside me and I get to take small consistent steps now.
I am setting my face towards the end of the hallway (the one I can’t see yet) and am setting my heart to lay down pride and the things that hinder my walk with Jesus so that when I get to the new threshold, I will be ready for whatever is on the other side.
Have you ever been in a similar season? Where it feels like all you can do are the basics and everything else gets pushed by the wayside or feels too hard and disheartening? Where you don’t have a clear vision and it feels like every time you try to take a step you are being held in place?
Have you landed in the dark hallway when you expected to arrive in a bright shiny new location?
Feel free to message me or leave comments to share how you have walked out hard seasons along your journey.
Know that I will be praying over each of you as we continue on. And I am more than willing to pray with you or for specific requests if you feel comfortable sending those my way.
Blessings
Kara
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