Wilderness Season: Finding God’s Purpose in Isolation

Editor’s note – When our author couldn’t find a willing interview volunteer, she answered her own five wilderness questions instead – and the result is more honest than a polished essay would have been. She wrote this out of a season that included divorce, quarantine, and a broken friendship, so these aren’t hypothetical questions for her. We’re running it largely as she wrote it, because most of us are somewhere in our own wilderness right now.

How This Interview Came Together

After being prompted by my editor to interview a fellow Christian for a future story idea, I put on my thinking cap. Because I agreed that an interview piece is a great idea for an interesting essay, I put together a list of interview questions based on a wilderness theme.

Next, I solicited volunteers and discovered there were several who were willing to be interviewed, but none who actually appeared to have the time in their busy schedules to follow through with the interview process.

Turns out it’s tougher than I imagined it would be to find willing volunteers with the actual availability to prioritize investing the minimal time required for this project. That, in and of itself, was telling and has the makings for another possible story in the future.

Maybe I’m too impatient. Maybe I don’t like to nag people. Maybe I’m too much of a DIY personality type, still lacking in the area of team player mentality as a lone wolf who generally prefers to go it alone.

For our purposes now, I will simply include the interview questions here with some of my own answers to get the process started. Feel free to add any or all of your answers in the comments section, should you feel so inclined.

Editor’s note – The search for volunteers becomes its own small parable here: an interview about wilderness seasons lands in one instead, because most people can’t spare the time to talk honestly about their pain.

1. Entering the Wilderness

Q. Can you describe a season in your life when you felt as though you were in a proverbial “wilderness” – a place of uncertainty, isolation, loss, waiting, or spiritual struggle? What was happening in your life at that time?

A. Yes, for me the most profound wilderness experience happened during COVID at a time I had moved back home with my mother while going through a divorce after a 27+ year marriage and was quarantined on lockdown along with the rest of the world. I was waiting to see what the Lord had for me next. And I was suffering from the added heartbreak of a couple friends in recovery who, from my perception, had betrayed me in a way I would rather not explain in greater detail here.

2. Experiencing God in the Wilderness

Q. During that wilderness season, how did you experience God – or, perhaps, how did you struggle to experience Him? Were there particular moments when you sensed His presence, guidance, provision, or silence?

A. Quite literally it felt like I was taking nature walks with Jesus every single day during that lockdown life. I definitely felt His presence with provision and guidance as He helped me save up money to eventually get my own place, and He guided me through what it means to be healthy and whole with or without another marriage relationship in my life.

Editor’s note – “Nature walks with Jesus” describes an ordinary habit, not a dramatic vision, and that’s what makes it believable. Presence usually looks like provision you only recognize as His hand later, in hindsight.

3. What the Wilderness Revealed

Q. Looking back, what did your wilderness experience reveal to you about yourself, your faith, and your relationship with God that you might not have discovered under different circumstances?

A. Having the time and quiet environment to grieve, heal, and let go of those I needed to place in God’s loving hands (including myself) was on an incredible level that may not have been possible under any other circumstances. Investing the quality time with my mother while her mental and physical capabilities were still as strong and competent as they were at that time, relatively speaking, was also undoubtedly by divine appointment.

4. The Impact on Your Relationship with God

Q. How did going through the wilderness change your relationship with God? Did it affect the way you pray, read Scripture, trust Him, worship, or understand His character?

A. One hundred and fifty-five percent! My relationship had never been as close and intimate with my Jesus prior to that COVID wilderness experience as it is now as a direct result of that season of isolation and intense recovery. Regarding reading Scripture more, that is a big YES as well. Specifically, Philippians 4 has been my life chapter for a long time now to remind me to meditate on whatever things are pure, lovely, noble, and of good report. In recent years, God also gave me an additional life verse so relevant to the approval-seeking little girl in me that I still have not fully outgrown, unfortunately. That verse is Galatians 1:10: Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Editor’s note – Philippians 4:8 and Galatians 1:10 both address chasing human approval instead of resting in what God has already said about you – worth reading in full, especially if people-pleasing is a familiar struggle.

5. Looking Back from the Other Side

Q. Now that you have some distance from that experience, how do you understand your wilderness season differently? Is there anything you would say to another Christian who is currently walking through their own wilderness?

A. Hindsight truly is 20/20, so looking back on that time now I tremendously value it as precious quality time with The Lord. At the time it felt like frustration, suffering and broken-hearted loneliness. But now I know God was faithfully doing a healing transformational work in my heart. To the fellow Christian who is in a season of waiting or suffering, I want to encourage you with Philippians 1:6: being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

In conclusion, while seasons in the wilderness often feel lonely, painful, and filled with uncertainty, they are rarely without purpose. When we surrender our timelines to God and allow Him to refine our hearts in the quiet places, our isolation transforms into a sacred space of personal growth and spiritual deepening. Trusting His perfect timing through every valley ultimately reminds us that He is faithfully using every season to shape us for what lies ahead.

If you are walking through your own wilderness season, take time to reflect on these questions in your personal journal or share your answers in the comments section below to encourage others on their journey.

A Word from the Editor
Every wilderness strips away what we thought we needed and shows us what was underneath the whole time. Psalm 23:4 doesn’t promise a short valley, only that we won’t walk it alone. If you’re in one now, remember that the God who finished His work in someone else’s story is finishing His work in yours.

Editor Comment: Thank you for turning an unanswered interview into your own honest, Scripture-soaked testimony that will meet readers exactly where they are in their wilderness.

This article appeared on Medium and is reprinted with modifications and by permission.