Last year the superintendent offered me a chance to participate the Academy for Spiritual Formation – I couldn’t go, because the dates were the same as my daughter’s wedding. And this year I wasn’t expecting, just the random conversation, like the accidental coincidence, that I would be free this time… But God doesn’t have coincidences. Probably, the topic is more relevant and the soil of the heart is ready for sowing.
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“Love never ends…” I am still thinking about this word “never”. It’s a good sign when the occasion has already finished but the thoughts and the feelings are staying. It means that something really important happened inside, in the core of the heart in the spirit. How God loves me, how I love God, how I respond to people around me, and how I need to respond with love…
About all of these were said, prayed, written in the poems and prose.
In our hard rushing century the time is the main value, because it has rather hard frames like 60-70 years, and it’s only there aren’t any severe diseases. And the family, job, ministry, friends, household and rest also require their time in everyday life, in every 24 hours of the day of our small cycle of life… And when is the time to think? To meditate about reasonable, kind and eternal? Praise God that there was the time when we didn’t need to think about food, sleep; you even didn’t need to share the living place with someone – only you and God, your God. And the nature which He has created for you. Clever, beautiful and perfect.
Many brothers and sisters had an opportunity to get the elements of the theological education, and also the understanding about the work of the covenant groups. But the most important (maybe, the most important for me) – it’s the opportunity to meet yourself and listen to the signs of your soul, which are reaching to the Creator…
If you are tired of rush, urbanism, speed of the being, I recommend you to make a stop and trust the experienced team of organizers of the Academy for Spiritual Formation. And be ready to be changed. Because God is near in that place …
Elena Kitaeva
Saint-Petersburg, UMC “Holy Trinity”
Photo and video Vasylyna Babych
Translate by Y. Minihanova
You can read the article, which was written by Katya Kim about the Academy for Spiritual Formation 2015 «Renovating Relationship with God»