I saw how he ended things and left last night, ignoring your pleas for one more try. The last time it would be you and him in this life.

I hear your music: Avril Lavigne is just the right witness for this broken-hearted, lonely love-rage.

I hold your hand as you cry. I scratch your back and whisper “ssshhhhh”. I am the big spoon, holding you around your waist, absorbing the shaking. I hand you another Mint Oreo and pass you the orange juice so you can continue to drink it straight from the carton.

As you oscillate between screaming into your pink pillows and exhausting into sleep, I see how beautiful you are- even with your tear-and-mascara-stained cheeks. How deeply you feel and how you love. And how no love has ever been able to meet you in your depth. I wish you could see what you carry as the beautiful gift it is, and I hope no one else ever thinks of it as too much again.

As you sleep, I listen to the silence in this dorm room. The only one with any life in it. The one where someone was forgotten by friends and loved ones, only a few exits down the freeway, enjoying the holiday season without remembering that you need to be a part of something, too.

I see your bravery for staying here when no one else did. I count the days with you until other students return. Not that we’re looking forward to it, but to give us something to attach time to. We know how many hours are left before we need to pull it together. For now, we can just puddle.

Cry, baby girl. Let it hurt. Feel it all the way down. Feel all the ways and times someone couldn’t love you the way you needed. All the times you faced the hard thing without a witness. Rage for the unfairness of having been left alone- again. Let it smash into soil. Let the salt wash it out. This moment is human. I wish you knew how much.

You’ll be okay. We’ll be okay. Because I love you. I see you. And you are never really alone.

When we went into the unknown, their detox began. Our conversations shifted — to the power of words, how we treat each other, how things are made and why, how we want to live now that we know there are more ways than one. With almost no screens and so much nature, they rediscovered boredom — and with it, creativity.

When I asked their favorite parts of this journey, their answers said everything.
Oldest: never having to be fully dressed, seeing so many animals, making things from nature, and visiting cousins.
Middle: animals, fire-making and whittling, and swimming anywhere and everywhere.
Youngest: growing up a lot, playing with cousins and siblings.

All this closeness hasn’t been perfect. There have been tired days and grumpy mornings, slammed car doors and too-loud laughter. But with only the four of us for company, we’ve had to face ourselves. The small space makes truth unavoidable. Every unkindness rises to the surface, and we’ve learned how to take responsibility right away — how to apologize, reset, and keep going together.

We started our homeschool year — our first since COVID — in rhythm with the road. No pressure, no comparison. Just learning by immersion: paper maps, workbooks in the park, science lessons growing from wherever we stopped. I watched them become more curious, less self-protective, more at home in their own skin.

I began to see a change in their eyes — white, clear, steady. The Spirit had returned to their countenances. After visits with their dad, they would come back dysregulated, fragile, then find their way to calm again. Each time, they became a little wilder, a little freer. Less afraid. More patient. More alive.

At the persistent requests of my younger two and their dad, and with Spirit’s merciful permission, we’ll be heading home for a while tomorrow. These weeks went by in a blink. As I hugged my kids goodnight tonight, I already missed them — the sweet, connected versions of themselves they’ve become. They are still mine, but I’ll have to share them again — with their father, with the world, with God. I’m hoping we can keep our nightly candle meeting alive, and that will help us remember what’s important.

My kids have been learning by wandering, asking deep questions, finding answers in the wind and the woods. I’ll miss knowing exactly where they are and what they’re doing, all within arm’s reach. But that’s the next lesson taught by the wilderness — learning to love them while letting them grow free.

For any moms who feel called to take their kids into the wild, here’s your packing list per child: two outfits and extra undies, a water bottle, a pocket knife, and a book or two. That’s it. The rest is provided on the road. At least it has been for us. Every step watched over. Every inch of us covered in His mercy.

What I’ve learned is that the wilderness was never about escape or adventure. It was about Presence—seeing them, and myself, as we really are when there’s nothing to perform.

Before the world begins to pull at them again, I’m cherishing the sweetness of the time the four of us lived close enough to hear the same heartbeat. I’ll keep listening and letting go, trusting that the same Presence who led us into the wilderness will walk beside them wherever they go next.

Peace to you,

-Selaiah

The road seemed to shine in one direction, so we followed that light—until darkness fell and it led us in our first official circle. We finally stopped at a small-town church parking lot to pray. The Jeep’s top was open, and the sky was airbrushed with stars—thicker than anything we’d ever seen. In the quiet, the Voice nudged my daughter: “Let’s get this party started.”

The message rekindled our hope. We drove into the next town square—dark, still, with only one cafe lit up. Inside the cafe, a group of women about my age laughed around a table. “Look—it’s the party!” my son said.

Without cell service, these strangers were our only chance at directions, so we parked, crossed the street, and knocked. One woman opened the door, surprised but kind. She gave me the names of two local inns and scribbled the addresses down so I could type them straight into GPS. It wasn’t the glowing welcome I had imagined—just a book club on a weeknight—but it was enough to keep us from wandering in circles.

That brief moment of connection felt holy in its own small way. My first conversation with another adult since leaving home wasn’t rescue or revelation, but light in the dark—a reminder that even ordinary kindness is a form of shelter.

That night we fell asleep quickly in a clean, safe hotel room.

The next day we wandered again, scanning for signs—for the grandmother or auntie who might wave us into her driveway and tell us we were home. We didn’t find her. We did find miles of quiet road and a little park by a river to play in.

Sans auntie/grandma and with nightfall creeping up again, we stopped at McDonald’s for a dinner of comfort food and free Wi-Fi. I found one last room available in a nearby town.

When we arrived, someone was being arrested in the parking lot. The daylight photos online had made the place look quaint, but after a long day of driving with no clear direction, I was exhausted and skeptical. It didn’t feel divine. It felt human—dirty and tired—like me. Still, as I lay down beside my kids, a peaceful warmth filled the room, quiet and unmistakable.

It wasn’t the shelter I had pictured, but it was the shelter we were given. It was safe, and it was enough.

That night, while the kids slept, I lay awake listening. Out here, away from the noise and comfort of our old life, I had expected the Voice to be louder. Instead, there was silence. Doubt crept in. Had I misunderstood the call? Failed to obey enough to keep the Voice with me?

Through tired tears, I prayed for clarity, but all I heard was stillness. I remembered how provision had always worked in my life—it had never fallen from the sky without my hands being part of it. I had always been called to do the next right thing, and the next, until things unfolded.

I opened Airbnb, and there it was: a tiny off-grid cabin surrounded by trees, with the wood stove and bunk beds I had seen in vision. I booked it for two nights—just until the wilderness camp would begin. Having a plan for the morning brought enough peace for me to close my eyes.

Realizing that the Presence and I had to work together changed everything. I still trusted His voice. I still knew I was loved and seen. But my heart was raw—the kind of raw that makes you either brave or broken. I could choose broken and go home. I chose brave.

The cabin was small and safe. It wasn’t the “warm welcome” I imagined, but it kept us warm and dry. Being off-grid was new for all of us- a fun kind of new. We cooked potatoes in foil over the firepit, showered outside, went to bed with the sun to avoid meeting any bears after dark. We made up songs as we fell asleep. Our bodies began to sync with nature’s clock.

Our next shelter was a tent at the wilderness school. We kept going to bed at dark and waking up with the sun. I felt more connected to creation than ever—my hands blackened from cooking on a tiny solo stove, my sandaled feet initiated into the tribe of dirt. The ground no longer felt foreign; it felt like it was remembering us.

Since that night, we have stayed in many kinds of shelter—cabins, converted barns, church-basement lofts, houses that weren’t ours but held us like old friends. Not every place has felt safe at first. Some smell strange. Some have dishes to wash before using, showers to clean before stepping in, nights where I fall asleep listening for sounds I don’t recognize. But even there, after the fear and the scrubbing and the settling, peace always comes.

Each roof has carried the same lesson: safety isn’t found in walls, but in Presence.

Before we left, I saw a feather drifting over us—an angel’s wing, I thought—offering covering and peace. I’ve felt that same protection ever since, wherever we go.

Now, sitting here in our thirteenth shelter since leaving home, I don’t doubt anymore that we’ll always have a place to land.

To be continued.

Peace to you,

-Selaiah

Keeping that beautiful house in order took a lot, but I loved this nearly full-time job—until one long, tearful night after a frustrating day. While wondering if I would always stay in a relationship that brought me more sadness than it should, I heard a voice call me “Beloved Daughter” and say, “You always have a choice. You are free.”

That voice had warmed me before, encouraging kindness over bitterness, comforting me as an unseen wife and a mother without a real village, and steering me toward truth rather than performance. This time the warmth stayed.

I began to run everything in my life through a new test: Was I doing this from love? Was I choosing this? Was this real or true? Was this freedom? I carried my new labels — “beloved”, “real”, and “free” — close to my heart, breathing them deeply and often. They rapidly changed me inside and out. Anything I had been doing because I thought I should or to please someone else had to be modified or discarded.

Straighten the curl out of my hair to look like my pretty friends? No.

Make sure the house was picture-perfectly clean before violin students arrived? No.

Continue attending a church that offered community but bound my spirit with “rightness” and shame? No.

Fight for a marriage that looked good on paper but starved me of love? No more.

I now knew that my freedom and joy were worth something — that I was worth something — many somethings, actually: real love, relationships that knew and supported the real me, freedom to worship the God I had come to know in authentic, personal ways, release from pleasing everyone else at my own expense. I had found Love and Truth. Everything else had to go.

At home, I was free to choose how I spent my days — to read, plant, or cook what I wanted, decorate however I pleased, host a game night with friends — but the more I could do in my home, the more I had to manage, and the less time I had to simply be beloved, real, or free. Through my new filters, the home I had dreamed of and built began to look like a comfortable kind of cage, belonging to someone who no longer existed.

As I decluttered my life and home of anything that no longer fit, I started hearing that loving Voice more clearly, and in strange and unexpected ways. Dreams, thoughts that weren’t quite mine, waking up to song lyrics I hadn’t heard in years but that reminded me I was cherished. YouTube offering exactly the right answer to a quiet concern. A friend’s timely text. My attention drawn to something ordinary that mattered for later. A picture in my mind of myself doing the next right thing when I got stuck.

This Source, Presence, Spirit — whatever you want to call it — was leading me, teaching me, helping me, through both my deepest thoughts and my most mundane tasks. I learned from Him not to rush anymore, and my kids quickly learned it from me. If I started to hurry or strive for perfection, the quiet Voice would fade until I slowed down, breathed, and asked again, “What’s next?” It got to the point where I could wake up and know what to do next, and next, all day — no calendar reminders, hardly looking at the clock — and still get everything done and everyone where they needed to be, right on time.

Communication between me and this living Presence became second nature. It was a guiding voice and teacher during the day and a source of universal truth and wisdom at night. I could ask any question and find the answer inside of me, but not from me. I had replaced my nightly dopamine-scrolling with Presence-seeking, and I couldn’t ever go back.

One night, I was nearly asleep when I heard a whisper that said, “It’s Jeep Time. It’s Jeep Time.” I didn’t know what it meant, but I was intrigued. I assumed it was related to a recent conversation with my kids about how a Jeep and a dog might be fun. Maybe God wanted me to drive a car that fit the new me better than my pristine, overly-intelligent SUV.

I opened Craigslist. The first listing under Autos, having been posted within the last hour, was an older, white, “Freedom Edition” Jeep Wrangler. It had clearly seen some adventure and been through some stuff, just like me. Freedom had become my guiding force over the past few months, and I knew this was no coincidence. I bought the Jeep in cash, thinking it was simply my next mom car. After all, a paid-off vehicle in my own name was one big step toward cutting the financial ties between me and my future-former husband.

Over the coming weeks, the usual-unusual messages kept flowing: visions of me and my son loading duffels into the Jeep, dreams of me and my kids around a campfire, Norah Jones crooning “Come Away With Me” in my head upon waking, a sudden urge to order long johns and snow boots for the four of us—in July. I saw a future of adventure mixed with sweetness, and danger covered with protection.

It became clear that, though I had imagined my husband eventually leaving when I asked, I was the one being sent away. The “wilderness” I was being asked to enter reminded me of Hebrews 11:8—”By faith Abraham… obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.”

I had spent enough days walking with this Voice who called me Beloved, never being led to anything but peace, mercy, and sweet surprises. So I would go, but I was afraid. I begged and bargained, trying to find ways to go into the “wilderness” without actually taking my wonderful but very privileged children — and my extremely indoorsy self — into the actual wilderness. Whenever I let fear lead, my imagination would spin out and my connection to the Voice would dim.

When I relaxed my shoulders and my breath, though, I was given images and messages of peace and hope. My fears of the worst, brightened by unmistakable Love, sent me into Preparation Mode.

I hadn’t yet told my husband my inner truth: that I considered myself free and was going to live that way. I couldn’t imagine saying out loud that I was listening to a Voice telling me to take our kids into the unknown. So the early parts of my preparation were in secret: backing up documents and photos onto portable drives, ordering camping gear to other addresses and storing it in holiday bins in the garage, stuffing small bills into envelopes, clearing excess books and clothes out of my office and closet. If I was going to leave, at least I would leave the house in a state that was easy for my husband to manage. I felt like a thoughtful bank robber preparing for my first heist.

I didn’t have a single adult I could tell. My closest friends had seen me change a lot this year, but they didn’t know the deep parts of how I had been living and listening. Sometimes I doubted everything — why would God spend so much time on me? Was I really hearing Him, or had I finally cracked under the pressure of suburban-mom-life?

This secret time — knowing I was going but not when or where, without feedback from anyone with a body — was lonely, terrifying, and very sad. I grieved what I would be walking away from: my sanctuary of a home, my dear friends, my beloved garden, my old self.

I also carried the weight of future grief for my kids: leaving their comfortable beds, best friends and crushes, lessons and sports, the magical childhood I had built for them. Not to mention their dad, who had just started treating them with more kindness. I grieved his loss of me and them. My tears filled my bathtub every evening and soaked my pillow every night. I slept little and worried much, without another soul knowing the dilemma I faced.

There was only one thing that kept the fear and grief from derailing my decision to go: He had called me Beloved and free, then watched over me in ways no one else ever had. He had made me new. So I would do anything He asked.

My to-do list was miles long, impossible for one person to accomplish. But I kept asking, “What’s next?” and doing just that, over and over again. One day, “What’s next?” was answered with “Tell him the truth now.”

A red-hot brick sat in my chest for three days, growing heavier every time I thought of what I had to say to my husband. Things had gone cold between us, but I hadn’t told him that I wasn’t going to keep pretending we were fine. When I finally spoke, it was unlike so many times before — he listened. The conversation held tears and words that I had longed to hear, but by then my heart was already gone. I had stayed far too long in a place where I wasn’t truly seen. And I knew God was letting me let him go, despite the mountain of expectations that had bound me for so long. No amount of begging or promising was going to clip the wings of this journey or the life I would now lead—alone in some ways, yes, but never wondering again if I was loved.

I told him the kids and I would be leaving, that we would be safe, and that I would be listening for where to go. We settled on our going away for a month, though I had the feeling we would be gone for much longer.

My son’s eleventh birthday was a “last” for our family — I could see it in my mind as a kind of goodbye. The way the Voice speaks, though, at least to me, is often symbolic and leaves room for interpretation about time. So I wasn’t sure how soon after his birthday we would go. I asked and waited, asked some more, waited some more.

Then I remembered the name of a wilderness and survival skills school north of home. It sounded like the right way to start a wilderness journey. I looked it up, and, of course they happened to be hosting a weekend family camp two weeks after my son’s birthday. I signed us up and planned to leave a few days before it started, so we wouldn’t show up to this outdoor gathering too fresh and clean.

The ten extra days after my son’s birthday—which had been shown to me as “goodbye”—were mercy: more time for me to prepare, and more time for their dad to spend with the kids. He and I both knew the sadness of those last days under one roof, but the kids were just happy to have his full attention and excited for the “homeschool camping adventure” ahead.

Leaving day came, and all of the last-minute final pieces fell into place a little too easily. I had packed a trailer (another provision story for another day) and filled the Jeep with way too much—everything we might need to live in the woods, on the road, or wherever God would lead.

I had cleansed myself out of the house as much as I could, all the while hearing, “Leave it done, not perfect. Pack enough, not everything,” and trying to trust that what I forgot would be provided, and that nothing I left undone would ruin my husband.

We said a tired and tearful goodbye to our home and the kids’ dad. I started the Jeep, towing a trailer for the second time ever, and we were gone.

The aching tiredness and teeth-clenching left my body almost immediately as we pulled out of the driveway. Preparing to go had weighed on all of us, but now there was time and space for curiosity about what was ahead. We went north, searching for the “prepared place” that had been promised.

To be continued.

I’m not brave or polished. But God asked me to lay down the comfort of the life I knew and let Him lead. Then He asked me to write about it. So I did. So I will. I hope my story helps light the way to your hearing Him, too.

Peace to you,

-Selaiah

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