Weakness and Fierce Landscapes

I've been reading The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality, by Belden C. Lane. I wish it were yet more personal, but it is a fascinating weaving together of the personal, the spiritual, and the scholarly. He talks about the desert as a place where we meet God when we have to face our powerlessness.

Somehow for me the difficulty of facing my powerlessness is woven in with the issue of forgiveness. I want the power to hold the other person responsible just as I want to believe that I could have resisted as a child. To admit that I had and have no power to change the situation is hard