The Secret Place

Designed For Solitude

The following essay is the first reflection for our June focus on the spiritual practice of Solitude. Read more here about our exploration of the spiritual disciplines in 2025 through creative and reflective writing.

By Elisa Johnston

Image credit: Aedrian Salazar via Unsplash

When I discovered I was unexpectedly pregnant with my fourth child, one of my first thoughts was: I’m going to be alone again. I feared the responsibility of motherhood would once again push me away from community, from purpose, from using my gifts within the Body of Christ. I was heartbroken.

I couldn’t count how many times I’d been pulled back into the church nursery, had to turn down opportunities, or stayed home while others gathered. The memories were enough to send me spiraling as I whispered, “I’m not built for this aloneness…”

And yet, in a way, I am designed for solitude. I just had to separate the loneliness of responsibility, suffering, and harm—what’s led me to secluded places—from the goodness of being set apart with God.

Scripture’s Purpose in Solitude

Like many who grew up in the Church, I was encouraged to have “quiet times” or “God-time.” As an extroverted, easily distracted child, I struggled to sit still for devotions. But that didn’t deter my Bible teachers. I was given checklists and formulas, like preparing an experiment, complete with acronyms and structured study guides. The Bible was presented as a long, heavy manual: “Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.”

Still, I loved God and desperately wanted to please Him. So, day after day, I tried.

Now, decades and much grace later, I struggle against the tendency to regulate my quiet time. But I don’t regret learning the discipline. It instilled in me a deep appreciation for scripture and taught me about the character of God. But there was something even more essential I discovered here.

Although the materials and manual were necessary, it was the experiment of quiet contemplation where I encountered the presence of God. It was in these carved-out spaces of quiet that I began to experience God not just as a subject to study, but as sustenance for my soul.

Solitude for Formation

While my teachers taught me scripture, my parents modeled presence. They taught me to listen to God through meditative prayer, worship, Bible reading, and journaling.They taught me not to just ask Him for things when I prayed, but to process my feelings, enjoy His creation, and recognize His voice in stillness.

I remember being baffled, even as an adult, by how delighted my mom would be to simply spend an hour by herself, a Bible and journal nearby. I began to pray that I would desire God as she did. My dad would go out into the wilderness, pitch a tent for the afternoon, and sit with God among the wildflowers. I chalked this up to him being a bit eccentric. Now, with the chaos of children around me, it sounds like heaven.

If there’s one thing they did right, it was introducing me to God in the intimacy of the Secret Place. That became the foundation of my spiritual life.

What Is the Secret Place?

The Secret Place isn’t a room, and it’s not exclusive. It’s intimacy with God, drawn from the Scriptures.

A mind-boggling relationship with God and Moses emerged when Moses met regularly with God in the Tabernacle, talking to God as a friend (Exodus 33:7-11). Joshua lingered there too. These were not rare encounters. These daily moments were ongoing, spent alone in God’s presence. The Bible says that Moses’ face would shine from the glory he had experienced (Exodus 34:29-35).

The poetry in Psalms describes a similar intimacy between God and His people, in good and bad times (Psalm 19, 25:16-18, 55:6). This verse specifically has always painted a vivid image of the Secret Place for me:

“Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me. By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me—a prayer to the God of my life.” —Psalm 42:7-8 (NIV)

In the Scriptures, Gideon, Hannah, Samuel, David, and Daniel are a few whose stories demonstrate this intimacy with God. In the New Testament, we have Simeon and Anna, the apostle John on the Island of Patmos, and the apostle Paul. Of course, Jesus Himself retreated to spend time with the Father. He even taught the disciples how to seek solitude with God.

“But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”
—Matthew 6:6 (NKJV)

Jesus challenged the culture of religiosity focused on self rather than God. He invited us into the Secret Place.

Solitude That Fuels Work

When I left home, I moved to Hawaii to train for the mission field. I attended lectures, served, and lived in community. I was always escaping—five minutes breathing deep the perfume of a plumeria-filled garden,; lying on a warm sidewalk under the stars. Though I had surrendered my life to God before, it was here that I truly fell in love with Jesus.

These brief moments of solitude sustained me through years of missions, humanitarian work, ministry, and nonprofit leadership. But somewhere along the way, I forgot how vital it was, making it an afterthought. I became more focused on accomplishing tasks for God than on staying connected to Him.

I had the church culture, theology, vision, and leadership skills. But I lost the intimacy with God I needed to thrive.

Solitude is like a microscope—it reveals the DNA beneath the surface. It strips away the noise until all that’s left is God and me, interwoven. It’s in solitude that I am nourished. Abiding in Him is not a poetic metaphor—it’s survival:

“The one who eats this bread will live because of Me.”
—John 6:57 (NLT)

Eventually, exhausted and burned out, I moved across the country and took a sabbatical. Healing came through recalibration. As I cared for my kids in a new land, I began to rely on these escapes as a source of spiritual sustenance, making them my bread and butter. They realigned my identity not with my productivity, but with God’s love. I’d step outside, breathe in creation, cast my cares on God, and be reminded again: I belong to Him.

Now, the only work I’m proud of is the work of God that overflows from our time in the Secret Place.

Solitude in Motherhood

Motherhood brought another kind of solitude—the kind that often feels like isolation. Relationships shift around us, but even the helpers can only lighten our responsibility, not sweep it away. Your presence becomes required in places no one else sees.

There are the dark night feedings, the endless needs, the unseen hours. Then, as children get older, this is replaced with the gushing flow of non-adult conversation and the constant demands of their lives. Although we are rarely alone—there’s always someone to hold—motherhood can be painfully lonely.

Sure enough, one day after my fourth child was born, I found myself at the back of a building, comforting my child. The bitterness rose up like the snap of a lasso, ensnaring me, reminding me that despite the effort I’d made to gather with a baby, I was once again alone.

In anger, I cried out to God, and He responded with a gift. I was flooded with flashbacks of times I had been alone with a child, but this time I remembered how God met me through them. I marveled: The Secret Place isn’t just mine—It’s God’s too.

Solitude in motherhood can become sacred. I didn’t know that I needed this type of solitude to form me, but God did.

Solitude in Suffering

They say in near-death experiences, people bargain with God. When I was in acute organ failure, I immediately began bargaining. Doctors said I was hours from death. My mind was foggy at best, but the bargaining fell short when a realization hit me. God already had everything: my life, my purpose, my family.

In the years that followed, I’d be hospitalized again and again with complications from systemic lupus, especially during my last pregnancy that nearly killed me. PTSD raged in my brain while my immune system attacked my body.

And there, in these depths, God would draw me to our Secret Place.

People urged me to claim Psalm 91:

“He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust.” Surely He shall deliver you…from the perilous pestilence.”
—Psalm 91:1-3 (NKJV)

I cried out, But I’m not safe, God! You haven’t protected me from this! How can I trust you?

But really, there were only two choices: making God my enemy, or letting him become my parent, my comfort, and my truest friend.

I thought of John the Baptist in the solitude of a prison cell, not safe either, soon to be killed, and how Jesus graciously responded to his doubts. John wasn’t offended. Could I be unoffended by God in my pain?

A cousin pointed out that “safe” is often better translated as “secure.” Secure from my circumstances, sickness, betrayal, burnout, or even from the frequently harmful way the Church relegates moms to the back room. But in all of it, I could be enveloped by the God who meets me in the Secret Place.

So through the suffering, I wrestle with God and tell him about my fears. I grieve what’s been lost. I still pray for healing, even while surrendering to the future I cannot control. And when I have nothing left, no strength to read, no air to talk, too depressed to climb out of bed, and hands too shaky to write—I listen to music that reminds me of God.

I can’t even begin to count the hours spent simply resting, aware of God’s comforting presence, in solitude when all else has been stripped away.

“Whom have I in heaven but you? I desire you more than anything on earth. My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever.”
—Psalm 73:25-26 (NLT)

One of the most unexpected gifts of motherhood, ministry, and even suffering has been being formed by the intimacy of God in solitude. What started in childhood was confirmed in my work, then tested through illness and motherhood, has become my lifeline. I can access the Secret Place anywhere I go. Among many things, I was designed for solitude, which brings me to my true home.

Elisa Johnston is the author of Justice-Minded Kids and The Life Mapping Workbook. She coaches and speaks at Average Advocate, empowering everyday changemakers in their message, purpose, and practice of doing good better with confidence. She also writes at Authentically Elisa about paradigms, faith, and wholeness after illness and trauma. You can find out more about Elisa and her writing at adverageadvocate.com.

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Big Picture Editing: Why to Leave the Red Pen in the Drawer

Thursday, June 26 · 10:00-11:00am PT / 1:00pm-2:00pm ET

How do you approach editing a manuscript independently? How do you know when it's ready for an editor? And what kind of editor?

Not every editor looks at your manuscript with the same eye. If she is a line editor, she is deep into the process already and expects tidy storylines, fully-developed characters, and tight dialogue. But a developmental editor has her watercolor pens out, ready to paint broad strokes that help you define the direction of your work in progress. Copyeditors fall somewhere in between.

This webinar will discuss the different editing stages and a few simple ways to prepare your work for an editor.

This webinar is free for Redbud Writers Guild members (no need to register), $15 for non-members. All proceeds go to support our Women of Color Mentoring Program.

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