I've debated on whether or not to share this but I am so excited, so amazed, so humbled by how God has shown up in my life recently, how He has spoken to me that I had to share.
I didn't grow up going to church, so my spirituality has always been something I've wanted to explore deeper but never have with any real conviction. When Liam was born I felt a pull to find a church, go to church. However I never moved forward, I think I always figured I had time. I would get to it one of these days. I didn't listen to what He was trying to tell me.
When I was diagnosed with cancer I felt another pull to really open my heart, my mind, my soul yet it seemed so daunting that I didn't act. How would I find a church, where would I start, how would I let go of all the questions and just believe, believe in the mystery and the miracles without applying logic to everything? During this, the darkest season of my life, how would I now pursue a relationship with Him when I felt so betrayed, so forgotten about.
Then my Aunt was struck by a brain aneurysm and I lost my beloved dog all in one day and I finally threw my hands up and cried and said I can't do this by myself. I was so heart broken and yet I had this feeling that He was trying to tell me something. Not that my Aunt or Remi were somehow punished by Him, but that He was reaching out, trying to tell me I didn't need to go through this by myself.
So I listened and He spoke to me through a good friend who reached out and asked if I wanted to go to church with her. This past Sunday I went to church for the first time as an adult. Here is where I don't even know how to describe my experience because words can't quite capture the feeling, the feeling of knowing He was speaking directly to me. The message or sermon (still learning the right vocabulary here) was all about physical healing. How people were healed through Christ of their physical aliments. Testimony of how people at that very church beat cancer. I was brought to tears, I had goosebumps. I was listening and I'm so glad I was because He had so much to tell me, to show me. I still get goosebumps thinking about it.
He continues to speak to me, to show up in small and big ways in my life and I suppose always has, I just wasn't listening before. He spoke to me through another good friend who asked me to start reading Beautiful Battlefields (by Bo Stern) with her. I just finished chapter three and one of the questions at the end of it was to think of all the ways, small and big, you have seen evidence God has gone before you. I got me thinking about this past year, more so, and it overwhelms me to see how He has gone before me and provided in such a perfect way, providing me with everything I need, when I need it on my battlefield. Cancer, my battlefield.
I am trying not to rush this, I am taking time every day to really listen. My current goal is to find a church that is the perfect fit for me. I look forward to each Sunday because I am visiting various churches with good friends and I look forward to hearing what He has to tell me, seeing what He has to show me and growing a relationship with Him that I now so deeply crave.
I continue to wage a very personal war on my battlefield against cancer I leave you with a quote and a verse from Beautiful Battlefields because they spoke so profoundly to me.
"And He who is the great Giver of every good gift creates some of the most brilliant and beautiful things in the darkest, most daunting seasons" - Beautiful Battlefields
"We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame" ROMANS 5:3-5
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