Have you even been in a dry place? Terrible, isn’t it! That really wasn’t a question… it is terrible. However, it can be profitable, there can be an upside. It’s a question of whether or not you are willing to learn from the situation. A dry place is another word for desert. Webster tells us that a desert is a desolate or forbidding area. I think it’s the desolation that is the most difficult for us to grapple with.
Honestly, I hate deserts! Perhaps a tad strong. I hate long desert ‘visitations’, more accurately reflects my feelings. I do love the learnings I get from the experience though. However, I don’t always appreciate them until I’m safely out of the desert, am refreshed, and able to consider what’s happened and why. A desert is definitely a hostile place and a location one would want to ‘escape’ from as soon as possible but it’s also important to learn all we can from this experience.
I think I always combine desert and struggling. I also associate desert with need – deficiency, lack of resources, lack of companionship, lack. This situation is doubly difficult if you really don’t understand how you got into this place or why. Sometimes to extricate oneself it’s necessary to ask the ‘right’ question. Perhaps it isn’t a question of the how and why but of the… now what? Once out the how and why questions need asking.
It’s probably fairly safe to say that we’ve all experienced deserts… multiple times. The issue really becomes: how we use those times, those learnings to grow. I learned early on that if I didn’t assess what occurred, what I did/didn’t do, etc. then I would be doomed to repeat the time in the desert. If for no other reason, for me that would be sufficient motivation. But our learning must be more than ‘how to avoid deserts’, it’s important that we learn all a desert experience can teach us.
