Text: Preface, Preface, ii
Winner writes: "When the Lord came into me, it was such a good feeling...but then there was all this stuff to do and to think about, and I don't remember the feeling all that well."
Do you have a conversion experience or do you remember the first time you experienced the nearness of God? What was that like? Are those experiences different in different life stages--as a child, an adolescent, an adult? Did you think that the feeling of nearness would last forever?
Winner talks about hitting a spiritual wall and the questions that arose once there. Have you ever hit a wall in your spiritual journey? What questions did you ask yourself or of your faith community? How did you figure out what to do and where to go next?
I'm looking forward to hearing from you. Please your thoughts in the comments sections!
Peace,
Sarah+
Text for tomorrow: pages 3-9.
3 comments:
I have two separate memories of that new connected feeling with God. First was as a teenager, on retreat with my youth group, out on a night hike under the Georgia stars. The overwhelming sense of the vastness of God, yet the comfort of something I couldn't name (as an adult I use the over-used word of community). The mystical and the magical merged with a lot of love, as tends to happen in youth groups, and a holy moment happened.
As an adult, stumbling my way back to the church, I remember a profound sense of the presence of Christ in my life,although I can't quite pinpoint a moment that it happened. Given where I was in my life, I was open that sometimes happens, I think, when we are vulnerable.
The challenge, for me, is that these moments are not long term. And so maintaining a spiritual life and practice when God seems further away can be hard.
Unfortunately as a child, teen and young adult my connected feelings with god were negative because the god I learned about and knew was one that considered me worthless. I did have an experience when I was about 11 when my family went to a new church and I was told that God loved me. This was a shock and I didn't understand it for many, many years.
I have had many connection with God experiences as an adult. One occurs when the lake is rough with white caps and the sky is filled with gray clouds - I look at the lake and can feel the power of God. Another is when I am with a patient who dies - as that last breath is released I feel God welcoming the soul of the person to their new home. It is a feeling of peace and homecoming. Another is when I am with a patient who is having great distress and I find myself telling them a story from the Bible, usually the story of Jesus calming the sea and his frightened disciples. Soon I see the patient relax, then smile - I know that God was/is present and has healed person - I can feel the realness and presence of God and how he has used me (as a vessel) to help the patient.
I too feel challenged by these moments. I want them all the time and I find I have a stumbling block preventing it - the stumbling block is me. I can't make the moments of connection happen. I have to try to stay out of the way and stay open - and too many times that is very hard for me to do.
The passage, from Ecclesiastes, regarding seasons summarizes my past and current experiences with God. There have been moments of birth and death, times of planting and sowing, times of healing, of breaking down and building up, and so forth. There has never been a time that I haven't known or felt some kind of relationship with Christ. This relationship has always been dynamic and often mysterious.
There never has been and perhaps never will be a specific moment of conversion. Rather, the road has been littered with moments of journey, reflection, and illumination that point towards a deeper understanding of my place in God's world. Both subtle nudges and full-on assaults have directed a path that has, for some strange reason, brought me to Chicago.
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