What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery 

We refer to lent as a desert experience.  Lent is when we shed the ‘extras’, a time when we spend time in solitude, alone with ourselves.  It’s not always easy, the desert can be quite harsh.  Without our little comforts to protect us, we sometimes expose our naked souls and come face to face with our wounds, our scars and those dark parts of ourselves that we hide so well in the light of the day.  There is no room for justifications in the desert….it’s just me and my God, and my God can see through all the excuses that we make for ourselves. 

‘But you don’t know what she did to me….’
‘You don’t understand, he hurt me and so I had to teach him a lesson..
‘I’ll do it just this one more time, and then I’ll change…’
and on…and on….and on…..
And as I continue with these little excuses, these little justifications, these little ‘I’ll start tomorrow’s’, I thirst and become parched.  I suffer in the desert because I don’t see the beauty of this process, I don’t see the hidden well.
Lent can be a difficult time, a time of suffering, a time for inner work.  We can keep our eyes down and walk through that desert alone and die thirsty or we can raise our eyes and see the beauty.  We are invited to walk with the One who knows the desert well and who knows that there is a hidden well.  Trust him to bring you to the Living Water….and never be thirsty again.
This post is very personal for me because yesterday I battled with a bit of gossip.  I went back and forth, should I tell it to my friend or keep it in.  I knew I should not tell her…but, guess what…blah, blah, blah…and now I feel terrible.  I didn’t control that gossip, I allowed it to control me.  I can’t do this alone…searching for the hidden well today!