"I keep seeing myself in this dust storm. I see no color wherever I look, I'm frozen in place unsure of which way to go. I can't see the sky or the ground. I stand here frozen while the dust swirls, chaotically around me, touching every part of me. I am anxious and impatient about it settling. I flail my arms trying to push it down, reaching out to grasp something that is impossible to hold onto. I try anyways because I can't just stand there.
Flailing my hands is just making it worse. Trying to settle it is only stirring up the floating dust even more. I see the dust swirling, swirling, swirling around me and I recognize some of the bits of dust as things I'm trying to figure out - my job, money, my relationships, my faith, my past, my future, my trauma, my dreams, friends, family. I don't know what to do."
"So just lay down."
Most people measure the start of a new year by January 1. I begin my new year in February. The month of February is when we celebrate a new Super Bowl Champion. February 1st was the day I landed in Hawai'i. February is the month my grandfather was born and also the month that he left to be in Heaven. There's more, but the point is that February is the month I intentionally slow down and take time to check in with myself and ask myself - what the heck am I doing?
That is the question I keep asking, over and over. They tell me that's what your 20s are for. I've never felt taking the "normal" route was part of my story so I've had a hard time accepting the fact that perhaps I am living as part of the "norm" as a 25-year-old.
Last February, I tried intermittent fasting for the first time and dedicated the month to asking God what I should do. About everything. That's where that dust storm vision came out of, and that was one of my best friends who told me to just lay down when I called her crying one day.
Reflecting on this last year, I see how my prayers changed from asking God to give me the awareness and courage when it's time for me to go wherever He is asking me to go to asking God to give me the patience to wait while until He is ready for me to go. I hate waiting.
"God's silence is God's gift to me and to any who truly desire it. I am finding you God, in that silence where it turns out you were there all along."
Metaphorically, a desert is a place of preparation, waiting, solitude and transition. It is where God takes us to mold and shape us into the people He wants us to be. God did this with Moses, David and Joseph.
I've been in (and still am in) the desert. Ironic, I know, since I live in Hawai'i surrounded by water.
Paul spent three years in the desert after encountering Jesus on the road to Damascus. From what he learned in the desert, he eventually wrote the book of Romans. He spent 3 years, cut off from his former life, thinking, praying, wrestling within, and listening to the Lord.
Remembering Paul has given me hope this past year, my 3rd year in Hawai'i - my desert. Where I've been thinking, praying, wrestling within, and listening to the Lord.
"How can Hawai'i be your desert Jasmine? It's beautiful and it seems like you're living your dream life!!!"
As thankful as I am to be living here, this isn't where I thought I'd be. Not at 25 and definitely not for 3 years. I thought I'd have a lot more money, a lot less things I still need to let go of, and a lot more steadiness and security in my life. That is not the case. But Hawai'i has gifted me with so much, including the stillness and the slowness to sit with the Lord, to depend on Him, to be so far removed from my former life that I can forgive myself and others, and heal.
"The desert can be a place of transformation, a place where you can discover your true purpose and potential. May you find the courage to trust in God's power to guide and sustain you. May your journey through the desert lead you to a deeper and more meaningful relationship with God."
July 20, 2023 - Lord thank you for bringing me to the desert. Jesus give me the patience and the courage to keep sitting here with my feet in the warm sand, surrounded by your calming presence for as long as you are asking me to.
So I sit here writing this, on February 1st, 2024 to let you all know that another year has come and gone, I'm still in Hawai'i, I still don't know what I'm doing and I am still constantly asking God to show me what He wants me to do, what is He preparing me for and reveal all of the things I still have not healed from that I need His grace to let go of.
January 1, 2024 - God give me a sign that I'm doing the right thing. Nothing feels right but nothing feels wrong.
"As we understand the heart of God, we see that His withholding is the goodness of His protection over our lives."
For a year now, I have been part of a Halau where I've been learning the practice of hula. Before we learn to dance, we learn the mele and olis (songs and chants) that accompany the dance to really understand what the movements signify.
We have an oli (chant) that we say at the start of the class where we ask our ancestors in the heavens to stand at our front and our back, to stand at our right side, to give us knowledge, intelligence, understanding, strength, and to safeguard us.
I've wrestled with this idea of asking my ancestors for anything. Maybe it's because I'm adopted and don't have a crystal clear idea of where I came from. Maybe it's my religion that believes the only person we should ask for anything is God. I'm not sure.
I talked to my Kumu (teacher) after class last week and told her how I was struggling saying a chant that we've said every week for over a year now. She said that Hawaiians don't believe in just a handful of ancestors (I'm imagining the scene from Mulan or Coco, I'm not sure why my idea of ancestors are only in Disney form). Hawaiians believe that when we call on our Aumakua (ancestors) we are asking for the strength, knowledge, and understanding from 40,000 of them.
So as I begin my new year and celebrate my third year in Hawai'i, a place that has given me so much and where God is asking me to be, I ask for the strength of my ancestors to stay steadfast in my waiting and wrestling in the desert. Who knows, maybe Paul is even one of them.