A life in the merde

Lasting impressions

May 6th, 2007

This weekend has left some lasting impressions.

As you might know I am a Christian, but for some reason I think this is the first post on religion in my blog. This weekend I went to Stockholm to attend a meeting arranged by the community of Taizé (www.taize.fr) and various Swedish churches. And now, after the weekend I have so many things to blog about that I don’t really know where to start…

First of all, one of the themes of the weekend has been to discover what God wants for our lives and how He tells us. One of the things I found really helpful in my life is looking back and recognizing how God have worked in my life.

Thursday I was reminded of this Taizé-meeting by a friends, I got a simple SMS asking when I would arrive in Stockholm. I had of course forgotten that I even planned going there and had originally planned staying at home enjoying Brussels spring and not going at all. But the reminder, God working through people, made me consider changing my mind. And after some hesitation I ordered my tickets and suddenly found myself on an airplane to Stockholm with a phone number of a Swedish girl whom I had never met and apparently was going to share host-family with.

I find this hesitation to be one of the ways I can recognize Gods will, strange as it might seem. Looking back in my own life and looking at the Bible most great choices are accompanied with this doubt. “Is this really what I want, can I really do this, will it really be worth it?” are questions that turn up again and again and in retrospect I am happy to have made the right choice, even though doubting and hesitating.

Then arriving in Stockholm, being met by a total stranger and then taken to a host family with a single mother and her four year old child. My host had simply read about this Taizé-meeting in a newspaper and then decided to open her home to us, out of curiosity both of us and of what we believe in. Again, another impression of Gods work in the world, working through people and giving this inner desire to discover more of Him, regardless of where you are in life.

I am not going to mention more on the Taizé-prayers and the actual meeting, this was also very nice, but this weekend it was two other events that gave the lasting impressions.

The first was in church this morning, again I had low expectations. We where going to a Swedish church to take part in a service with confirmation, baptism and Holy Communion. Normally such services are boring (yes, even Christians can find services boring) and I definitely got surprised.

The confirmants had prepared a part each on what had touched then during their preparations and I must say that I got amazingly surprised. One of the girls talked about the simplest of things, why she wanted to be a Christian and why she wanted to belong to the Swedish church. She gave her witness with an amazing clarity and a smile on her face and I again this weekend I could see how people get touched by God and how they again can touch the people they meet. I do not remember the details of what she said, but the main message was her honest wish to be recognized as a Christian by her acts, and not by her words and her wished for the Swedish church and its community. Another reminder for me, I will keep it my heart for a long time.

So no, if you ever hesitate you know what to do.

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