Untamed Faith: Trusting Myself on an Uncharted Path
Finding beauty, resilience, and freedom while living alongside the Kenai River
May 30, 2024*
I want to write about faith, the trust that brews when no one is looking,
Not even me.
And the self-trust I’ve developed through my fidelity to states of being, showing up for myself with kindness, deep listening, drawing from the well of love, self-love, God-love, love in beauty, love as a state of being.
In this place, faith is hardened from trials, but is not brittle, angry.
This faith sparks wars within me where I find and can finally identify boundaries, resistance, what’s mine, and what is not. And, and, I have a voice. I have faith in my truth, my voice.
Faith in myself offers freedom.
Words, sentences, truth spoken. Offered, received. Sometimes not, at other times imperfectly, like a cake that falls in the oven collapsing into itself, and that’s okay.
Faith is grace these days.
Grace that I’ve reached my, “I can’t,” and the present I open is an acknowledgment, bitter acceptance. Recognition of, “You can’t,” together with the inner message, “And beautiful, you are not alone in this.”
A few weeks ago I came as close to rock bottom as I ever have, and in that time, I was seen and heard—with visible and invisible support and guidance. Step by step, breath by breath, I can do hard things, with love.
*This reflection came from a thirteen-minute write on May 30, 2024 (thank you
and !). Now, nearly three months later, I look back, from the intensity in an Alaska season of running my business—River Raven Sanctuary lodge on the Kenai River, and my parents RV Park down river from my place. I note all the blank pages on the computer, in my journal, feeling the leanness of 18-hour days, constant, full, for months, a time and season of living that nears completion.
On this fine Sunday morning, sunny with gusty breezes clearing the yesterday evening heavy rainstorm, guests all checked out, the next group not for a week, my friend Christine and I met at a local coffee shop, then walked and talked along the river, weaving all sorts of catch-up and truth into the air, and each other’s minds and hearts. Friendship is such a gift! I experienced a moment when reality shimmered, and I tuned into a state of being I’ve not experienced. I shared, you know, I am nearing the time when I’m not tethered to anything or anyone. I could go anywhere—me and the dogs.
Arriving home, I backed into my driveway, the day stretching ahead. Leaned back in the seat for a pause (do you ever do this upon arriving somewhere, before transitioning into the next?) A thousand tasks and things--okay, maybe only one hundred--call my name that I could do, yet upon closer examination, for today, only two must-do items. This is unusual and disorientating after the past 14 months of my life. Leisure and sabbath time when I’m a solopreneur with multiple businesses in an Alaska summer is seized in brief precious moments. Sitting in the warm Tahoe, wind swirling golden leaves around, I wrote my friend (and self) a message,
Thank you for the walking, talking, listening. … I’m experiencing beginnings and closeness of a freedom I’ve never yet known that I’ve been preparing for my whole life. Perhaps why my unexpected housemate came that weekend in May and the man I had begun to date turned around at the border, and did not. I’m not tethered anywhere. To anyone. Only my dogs who can travel with me. I will complete my projects, taxes, the lodge season, the winterizing of properties. I sense this “season” is complete. The rest is simply the icing. Bonus. I am free. To love, respect, choose. Faith in myself, my good choices, discernment, and decision grows. I want to live with astonishment, curiosity, intent, and most of all, love and a gentle yet fierce mighty kindness. I wonder what truly makes me tick? What may emerge in this spaciousness from disrupting gaps, clearings, completions!
Reflection exercise
Without editing, quickly make a list of things you can trust about yourself. Next, make a list of the places and people where you’ve experienced support, that draws you into further trust and faith in self and others.
Next, read your lists aloud, and breathe in their truth as a mirror to you.
Then, give thanks in your own words or expression for these people and moments, and most of all, for beautiful you!
Reflection exercise
Without editing, quickly make a list of things you can trust about yourself. Next, make a list of the places and people where you’ve experienced support, that draws you into further trust and faith in self and others.
Next, read your lists aloud, and breathe in their truth as a mirror to you.
Then, give thanks in your own words or expression for these people and moments, and most of all, for beautiful you!
this is brilliant! So many gorgeous lines and more importantly the feeling of freedom in your words! In that moment in the driveway. Wow Pegge! thank you.....