Seperation Equals Enhanced Communication.

You know, God's been on my mind. I know what you're thinking, isn't he always? But not really. I am a typical human being, and tend to only really think about God when I need him the most. You see, God has always, always been in my life. I grew up learning about God, and I am so undeniably blessed to have that experience. As I was talking to a friend over lunch today, we were talking about how people who grow up with God seem to think that they don't have a testimony. But, as my wonderful friend put it, "God has no grandchildren, he only has children". At one point or another, your relationship with Christ has to move past what you were raised with, and become personal. You have to accept God as YOUR father, YOUR savior, YOUR truth. You can't completely rely on your parents or families experience with God, YOU must experience God.

Another wise young woman I know wrote recently about her realization that being a follower of Jesus means LITERALLY following Jesus, not just believing in him. Action is key in our relationship with Christ, and you must seek him out. So when I say God is on my mind, I mean I feel the desire to continually seek him out, to search for God, not to just let him be a viewer in my life...not that God would content himself to sit on the sidelines anyways.

I began to understand this difference in London. It was the first time I have truly been on my own with God. My roommate was not a churchgoer, and I couldn't go home on the weekends to go to church with mom and dad. If I didn't seek out a church, or seek out Christ, it wasn't happening. Period. So the first week I didn't go to church, I didn't really even think about God come Sunday. I just let things be what they were. Luckily God was smart enough to nudge me in the right direction, and my host mom asked me if I wanted to attend church here because I mentioned it in my letter to them, so she told me about all the different churches and this and that. So the next Sunday I went, mostly because I was afraid of what my host parents would think if I didn't. It was scary to go to a church where I knew no one, alone, in a foreign country. But I did, and instantly felt a desire to keep going.

And as life kept going, the little tiny flame for Christ started to blaze in a way I hadn't really experienced before. I hadn't brought a bible with me, so I started a search for one (side note, the new international version is not very big internationally, haha). This lead me to talk to other people in the group, and realize there were other believers with me. I remember feeling an unquenchable thirst to read 1 Corinthians so I borrowed a girls bible while she was in class, and just soaked in the glorious work of God. I then felt a need to read the Shack, so my search continued. Eventually I found both a bible and the book, and read through them in a short period of time.

I have never felt so full of God. Being separated from my comfort zone gave me the chance to see just how much I need and want him in my life. To see just how much my relationship with him is about him and I, not the church and him. I need to be included in it. I need to be in constant communication. I need to surrender to God. I need to pray to God. Church is a fabulous, wondrous thing, but it's not everything. I still gladly attend church on Sundays, and I commune with other believers, and I learn about God. But in London my relationship transformed from secondary to personal. And it's so much the better for it.

God is all about love.


And I am in love with God.