On resurrection

A story about the unexpected healing I encountered in the North Carolina woods

The fullest expression of freedom is a life lived with nothing to prove.

This lesson came home for me last week while on a women’s retreat in the woods of Sophia, North Carolina.

The more I think about it, the location really mattered. There’s something about being in the middle of the wilderness, surrounded by birds and trees and frogs and other wild things that made me feel at home in a place that actually really scared me.

I hadn’t been in an evangelical Christian setting for years. Something about the mix of racism, political nonsense, and an exploitative value for quantity over quality had put a bad taste in my mouth. While it’s easy for me to intellectualize this break between me and evangelicalism, the heart of the matter is that trust had been broken.

Deep trust, a trust that once compelled a 17-year-old girl to “give everything to God” during a Wednesday night youth service, was shattered as I watched leader after leader make choices that didn’t support the flourishing of women and Black folks. Trust was shattered when I, too, became someone more interested in gaining influence than in being a faithful steward of my life.

I’m still unpacking all of this of course. The spiritual journey is a nuanced and messy one. I’m still learning how to take ownership of my choices. I’m still learning how to release folks in forgiveness who made choices that caused harm. It’s a process.

My point is, that while I signed up for this retreat, I almost didn’t go because I was afraid of everything I just named above. I was afraid I’d hate it. I was afraid people would judge me. I was afraid I’d feel pressure to perform.

But as I settled into this art-filled, warm and immensely creative space, welcomed by honest and powerful women, fear slowly faded and the possibility of trust began to rise.

I’m hesitant to share this story, or bits of it, because I have no interest in being prescriptive here. I don’t think there’s a formula for this. I don’t think some of us “earn” God’s presence and other’s don’t.

I have no prescription here; I only have my story.

I’m also hesitant to share because so much of my experience was mystical and profoundly inexplicable. Literally y’all. I don’t have words for all of it. My experience was the stuff that faith, believing without seeing, is made of. It was like drinking from a deep well and finding nourishment for the most parched places within me. I didn’t even know how desperate I’d gotten. I was hungry, and God filled me.

The past couple years of my spiritual life have been marked by wandering. I imagine this is true for some of you as well. Maybe the heartache of past seasons has created caverns in your soul of disappointment and despair. I get it. I’ve been there.

For me, wandering has led to all sorts of incredible and expansive places, from having healing ceremonies in the Arizona desert to learning how to read tarot to exploring how to read the stars. It’s been really beautiful honestly.

But it’s also true that there are some hard things in my life that even the best and most expansive spiritual practices simply can’t heal. I started to hit a wall. Tarot, astrology, and ancestral veneration all started to feel like shadows of what I really needed. I was growing exhausted of how hard I had to work to stay on top of things so that I could understand my own life. It was getting tiring. It had become another form of anxious striving. And while I still love those tools, they are just tools, incapable of bearing the depth of liberating fruit my heart has needed most.

I also began coming up against how my hopelessness was affecting the people I lead and serve in my work. People who are healing from racial trauma or who are advocating for change in their organizational lives need hope. They need hope that their efforts matter. They need hope that they and others can change. They need hope that something bigger than themselves will heal, restore and make a difference.

But because I was carrying unaddressed despair, I didn’t have the vision to lead people anywhere other than towards versions of spiritual pain management. Which is fine for a season. We all need Tylenol every now and then. But taking Tylenol every single day is different than healing the root causes of one’s pain.

I personally needed a root cause solution. And again, this is just my story. And there are parts, of course, you’ll never see, like me weeping in the middle of the night because of the heaviness and hopelessness I’ve faced in the midst of life’s pressures.

So…I ended up in North Carolina. Reluctant, but desperate. Because my ways weren’t working. They weren’t healing the root causes of heartache in my life. I was hungry for a more beautiful way. And while nestled in the North Carolina woods, in community with honest and powerful women, God met me. God healed me. I’m new again.

I named this blog “On resurrection” because I feel more alive today than I did even two weeks ago. I feel as though my inner world has been recreated by the living words of my Creator. I’m nervous because I don’t know if or how this post will meet you where you are. I don’t know if you’ll hate it. I don’t know if you’ll see your own story in it.

My hope is that if nothing else, you feel permission to get really honest with yourself and with God about anything that has broken your heart, has left you despairing, or has made you feel desperate for a healing greater than yourself.

My hope is that if nothing else, you find the courage to set down anxious striving and to ask for help.

My hope is that if nothing else, you have an encounter with Love that helps you to know in your deepest places that you are cherished, wanted, and worthy of a wholehearted life. Free of the pressures of performance. Full of flourishing, with nothing to prove.

I really just skimmed the surface here because again, so much of my experience is…currently, inexplicable. But if you’ve got questions or reflections, feel free to comment below or to email me at hello@bethaneywilkinson.com. I’d love to hear from you.

Be well, Beloved. Thank you for your presence and readership.