Desert Reflections Blog

Time moves differently when you're trapped. It slows, stretches, plays tricks on your mind. For nearly three weeks, I had counted the minutes, hours and days, measured them in prayers, in quiet and not so quiet moments. Each morning brought new hope which quickly evaporated; I asked the same question: Lord, is today the day?

Each time, the answer had been no.

But on March 1^st, 2023, something shifted, the Sun rose up out of the desert casting a beacon of light down an otherwise cold gray corridor.

The weight in my chest felt different that morning. When I whispered my question into the silence, the answer came - not as doubt, not as uncertainty, but as a quiet, undeniable yes.

I almost didn't believe it. After weeks of waiting, of silence, of bracing for disappointment, I had learned not to trust in easy hope. And yet, later that day, after nearly five days without contact, I made a call.

Adrian answered.

His voice carried something I couldn't quite place. Exhaustion. Relief. A hesitation that made my pulse quicken. He had been fighting, pushing, working behind the scenes. "I don't want you to get your hopes up dad, but...".

My heart pounding, reality shifting beneath my feet all I could do was wait.

I just didn't know how much my world was about to change.