My research took an unexpected turn over the last week or so when God put the term “herimtage” on my heart. The topics of hermitage and poustinia were not on my radar for a book on liturgical homesteading, but God knows what He is doing.

Since I was a teenager, I’ve dreamt of having a cabin in the woods. When we bought our homestead, we began to dream of building a cabin on the back of the property as a little getaway place. We thought something simple, maybe off-grid. A place to unwind and recharge, a place where our visitors could stay if they wanted to spend the night (since our house is nearly always loud and chaotic, and is always full).

For the past ten years, we’ve discussed putting up some type of cabin, and for ten years, we’ve decided it’s not the right time. Recently, I was beginning to feel a desperate longing for some quiet and solitude. Life is more hectic now than ever before, and while I appreciate the many “nights off” I’ve taken by driving into town and sitting alone in a restaurant with my headphones on to drown out the distractions while I write, I hate feeling like I have to spend money, and the other places I could go all feel unfit. I want to be home, and yet not. God didn’t bring me to this land to get away from it!

The feelings or promptings reached a fever-pitch recently, and we’re now in the process of seeing if we can finally make this dream a reality this year. When God gave me the word “hermitage, I realized that I was being nudged to move forward. I mentioned the desire for a retreat space on my Instagram account and how I started to research hermitages, and a friend reached out and said, “That reminds me of ‘poustinia’!” He recommended the book Poustinia by Catherine Doherty. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, “poustinia” is roughly the Eastern equivalent to “hermitage.” As a book lover, especially when it relates to my faith-life, I promptly ordered a copy and began reading it as soon as I had a few minutes of free-time.

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been made to feel guilty or just felt guilty of my own accord for desiring to have this type of solitude. It took me years to understand that what my soul was longing for wasn’t bad at all. As a homeschooling, homesteading mom and wife, sometimes I am just so utterly worn out. I think we all feel it, no matter our walk in life. I’ve been told that I shouldn’t want my kids to go spend the night at their grandparents so that while they build relationships, I can get my house clean or just enjoy the silence. I’ve felt guilty for not wanting to be around anyone, including my husband, because this is exactly the life I’ve always dreamed of. Was I battling some sort of escapism? I was pouring out my feelings to God as I prayed about whether or not we should move forward with this little retreat space and telling him, “I don’t want to feel like I need to become a hermit!” when he gave me the word “hermitage.”

First of all, there is a very negative connotation to the term “hermit” in secular society. And when we do view it positively, it is often a form of escapism. “I’m sick of people! I just want to live like a hermit in the woods!” But a truly hermetical life is not one of escapism or isolation, but prayer. People go on retreat to a hermitage or poustinia so that they can remove themselves from the chaos of life to pray and recharge, and because sometimes we need silence and isolation to really hear God speak to us in prayer.

The number of times that I’ve seen people encounter God on our homestead is astounding. What a gift! Sometimes it’s hard for me to appreciate that gift when there are cranky children running around and the animals need tending and the garden is overgrown or I’m drowning in fresh produce that needs to be handled. And yet, I don’t often actually want to be away, I just want to be still. Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still and know that I am God.” I want silence. I want peace. As I was reading the opening chapters of my new book, I highlighted a passage that reads, “Nature is not divine. It is only a sign of God, a cry toward God” (emphasis added). That’s what all of the feelings of unrest and frustration and sadness and overwhelm and even joy and peace and love are… a cry toward God. Sometimes we need that silence and solitude so that we can pray and recognize that the motions of our hearts really are just a cry toward God. It is an opportunity to check ourselves and or motivations, how we spend our time, and to realign our wills and our thinking with God.

If by God’s grace, this is meant to be, I will share more as we move forward. In the meantime, I hope you are finding time for prayer for vocations during these Ember Days, and to thank God for the wheat that will become for us the Body of Christ.

In Christ,
Danielle