Day 213 Lent and The Joy of Peace

It is time to write about my quest to find Jesus again over Lent. I took time out from church volunteering to try to put my relationship with God on the first place and be filled instead of pleasing people and in the process get isolated. This is something that very easily happens to people who find it difficult to say no when asked to volunteer. Well, I’ve been learning to say no, and it doesn’t seem as difficult as I always thought it might be. I also became open about how I felt to friends and the leadership in the church, who were straight away there to support me. They know exactly the dangers of burnout and the spiritual isolation one feels when everything else comes first than one’s personal relationship with God. I got my Study Bible off the shelf and started to read Deuteronomy. Fuzz suggested I should start with that and Flo encouraged me to read the Bible itself as a story. And I am more than happy to announce: I am doing it. I love reading forewords and after words in books and interesting facts about the author’s life and the Study Bible is full of that. I am slowly getting myself through chapter one with all of its interesting facts about covenant texts. We all go through spiritually dry seasons. Mine started last summer and it got to a point when I was really concerned about my faith. Lots of things have happened that made me questioned it because of people, their behaviour and my own behaviour in certain situations. Finally a few weeks ago I felt it was enough of the draught, and the rain had to come. It came in the sweetest form at New Vine on Saturday and showered me with grace during prayer. As I was lying on the floor crying from joy and peace I thought if this is just a small percentage is what heaven is like I want to be there when it comes to the end of my life here in the earth. The theme of the women’s conference was confession and forgiveness. I forgave to Mission Year and confessed of being angry with God because of them and because of other things. The power of confession and forgiveness is like a miracle, as soon as you do it, you break the grip of isolated anger and destruction and you are free.