11 Years and Peace is still Amazing

I'm a day late on this - but I guess you'll just have to deal with that. :)

Eleven years ago I became a Christian. It was at one of those big youth camps. There were a few hundred teenagers in a chapel on a college campus. It was the first night of camp and I certainly wasn't expecting it. I do remember so vividly the feeling of peace that literally just filled my mind after I finally admitted that despite being a church-goer and involved in all the things of the church for years - I never really trusted that Jesus alone was my salvation.

I am happy to report that eleven years later I wasn't just another youth-camp "high" - - that while the eleven years between 16 and 27 have been filled with life and all it's up and downs and there have been moments and days and years where I was walking in the Spirit and times just as long when I have not - - that today - eleven years(and one day) later - my Prince of Peace is still a vital part of my life.

Just yesterday I asked a friend to remind me should I ever again start living like I forget - that peace is worth fighting for. What I mean by that is that the struggle against self (no matter how good-intentioned those self-serving acts are) is always worth the fight if the prize in the end is a step closer to being one with the Spirit.

A Poem for you

Today I ran across a poem that I first read about six years ago. I remember when I first read it and just liking the rhythm and the feel. As I read it again today I understood it a different level. Today it made me smile as it described to me the reality of becoming at peace with yourself - your past self, present, and future.

Love After Love
Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

The line "you will love again the stranger who was yourself" really resonates with me. I guess so many times I've kind of struggled with this idea that I know these two versions of me. And the past version of me has certainly felt like "the stranger who was myself" at many times. I think though - that I've finally started to greet her welcome with a smile and enjoyed the fact that I can sit and feast on my life. It is a good one - - desperate notes and all.