Spiritual Growth

I have brought along several good books for this trip. My prayer has been to ask God to use this time to renew my heart and faith. I have been reading Brennan Manning’s book Abba’s Child. He quotes E. E. Cummings “To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.” There is nothing like exposure to deep poverty and the a community ravaged HIV/AIDS to awaken your soul to what is truly important. While the kind and loving people of Malawi seemingly have nothing they have discovered a deep joy in their relationships and love for God. We visited an HIV support group today where the 50 or more are facing a short life sentence and yet they sing with such passion and hope it overwhelmed me. While we live in a land of abundance we have paid the price by forfeiting inward peace. This trip is a really a journey for me to rediscover the mind-boggling truth of how much God loves us. Manning writes “Is this miracle (that God loves us) enough for anybody? Or has the thunder of ‘God loved the world so much” been so muffled by the roar of religious rhetoric that we are deaf to the word that God could have tender feelings for us?”