Deeper Spirituality: The One Hour Challenge

I just created this facebook group, so I thought I would add it to my blog too!

Deeper Spirituality:

The One Hour Challenge

For the past little while I’ve been feeling this tug toward a deeper spirituality. I was driving home from Toronto on Thanksgiving weekend and had an idea… I had just had a great conversation with a friend about this ‘season of prayer’ we find ourselves moving into and then promised each other we would continue to earnestly pray. I thought driving home, “how could I discipline myself to actually really pray, a lot?”

Then I had this idea, ‘The One Hour Challenge’, to pray for at least an hour a day. It has been great and now I want to share the challenge with you.

BUT FIRST, LET ME LIBERATE YOU-

I think we’ve (our Christian culture) turned prayer into something pretty boring and hard to do. The challenge is NOT to sit on your couch or your knee’s for an hour everyday trying to focus long and hard enough to have some kind of conversation with God, unless that is how you most experience God of course…

Find the places in your life where you most experience God and just go there, purposefully. I think that’s where we best honor/worship God. I know God wants to be part of every area of my life, but for me, I most experience and can best worship God when I run, write, hang out in nature (by a lake), paint, serve the poor, go on long drives (in no traffic) and in those last 10 minutes of body flow (like yoga) class when the teacher tells us to relax and be still. Where do you most find God in your life?

So I invite you to join me in this and share your stories with this group!!

For more on ‘Creative Prayer’, watch the video I have posted on my facebook page…

Daria

Prayer is not eloquence, but earnestness; not the definition of helplessness, but the feeling of it; not figures of speech, but earnestness of soul. ~ Hannah More

In worship, God imparts himself to us. ~ C.S.Lewis

The prayer power has never been tried to its full capacity...if we want to see might wonders of divine power and grace wrought in the place of weakness, failure and disappointment, let us answer God's standing challenge, "Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and might things which thou knowest not. ~ J. Hudson Taylor

CANCER-FREE!!!

I’m feeling such relief!! I’m starting Monday morning off on a great note. I just left the plastic surgeons office and found out that I’m cancer free!! I can also workout and shower again!! Yeahh!!

To put this into context for you, incase you have no idea what I’m talking about, in mid-September a pathologist report of a mole I had removed came back saying it ‘could’ be early-melanoma. I really didn’t phase me when I found out, I text messaged my mom, sister and best friend to tell them the news and just carried on with my day. I think they were more surprised than me. I then called a friend back and told him like it was nothing, like I had the flu or something. That night I went home and started to research melanoma and that was when I realized that this could have been a bigger deal… Apparently I’m really not that invincible.

Melanoma is the most serious and dangerous form of skin cancer. There are around 160,000 new cases of melanoma a year and around 48,000 of those people die from it. The good thing is that early-melanoma is very treatable, but if you catch it late it could very easily kill you. Thank God we caught it when we did! I read about what it could have been had I waited- wow- scary!

This whole experience has shown me that we’re not invincible. I always think that, ‘it won’t happen to me’, and I find that to be a pretty common thought of our culture. The crazy thing though is that it does happen to us, cancer could happen to anyone and we’ve all been affected by it in some way or another.

The past 6 weeks have been a bit of an emotional roller-coaster for me. Some days I’ve been scared, I’ve felt humbled, had peace… and then I’ve wondered, “is this peace or do I just think I’m invincible, should I be worried?” Two weeks ago I had a larger chunk of my skin removed and to be honest, most days I’ve felt more annoyed and inconvenienced than I’ve felt thankful for catching this as early as we did. I had to wrap myself up in a garbage bag just to shower cause I couldn’t get the stitches wet, I couldn’t workout, I could barely even bend over- Just getting in and out of my car was hard. And then I think what if they didn’t get it all?? Bigger surgery!! God, please make this it!!! I’m soooo thankful that the doctor told me this morning that this is it, I’m done! I'm free of cancer!!! I’ll be huffing and puffing at the gym again tomorrow!!

Ohh, and don’t forget, WEAR SUNSCREAN!!! :)

Marriage...

Yesterday Jess and Stephan got married and it was a lovely day indeed. Everything was so well organized, creatively done and simply beautiful. Jess, was one stunning bride! I love weddings; there is something so beautiful about love and committing your life to someone before God and a ton of people. It’s sacred and amazing; I never fail to cry when I see such love at a wedding.
As I was watching Jess and Stephan so in love with each other, something different hit me yesterday. The past little while I’ve been hearing more and more stories of divorce and rocky, bad relationships, which I guess has made me re-think the meaning of love and what it will be like for me one day. To think, at one point these people were in love, like Jess and Stephan, and some even committed themselves in marriage before God and their family and friends and now, someone in the relationship, has given up on that

love. Not fair and sooo sad!!! I can’t even imagine the pain- I don’t want to. At least 50% of marriages end in divorce, even in the ‘religious’ circles, and especially in Quebec people often don’t even get married anymore… It’s not worth the risk and complications.
I wonder how and if things can change in our culture.
I pray that Jess and Stephan are that change. I think they can be.
I hope I will be one day too.

Remembering the Past- Cambridge

I arrived in Cambridge yesterday for an Ontario 24-7 gathering and oh, the memories! The 7hr drive was long but nice; I just hate the Toronto traffic- I am glad I don’t have to deal with that everyday! I had my trusty travel companions to keep me awake on the car ride: Old school Mariah, Jason Upton, Erwin McManus and Leona Lewis. I moved to Cambridge about 4 years ago for the last semester of my undergrad. I worked at Montana’s, worked out and swam at the YMCA, and did an internship at one of the churches. I drove around Cambridge to kill some time before the conference and remembered those days and places.

The craziest thing was going to visit Heritage (my old school) today. It’s unbelievable how going back to an old place can bring back such memories. I’ve never really experienced anything like that until today. Looking back I could honestly say that was one of the hardest years of my life. I moved there with a completely shattered heart, fresh out of a 2 year relationship with the man I thought I would marry. I lived in a basement apartment with 2 girls who were planning their weddings for the month after graduation and I had the only room with no window. I was taking 6 classes, doing 20 internship hours a week and waitressed 4-5 days a week. Those were some dark, dark nights and I was doing everything I could to not think about how crappy life was.

As I look back (they do say hindsight is 20/20), I’m pretty thankful for that year. I think of how far I’ve come since those days and feel so thankful for the way I’ve grown into who I am today. I truly do believe that God could take our brokenness or shattered dreams and make something beautiful out of it… I was reminded of how true that is today. I think our dreams often get shattered because there is something better out there for us that we probably can’t even fathom yet. There is so much we have to learn through those hard experiences, constant tears and sleepless nights- no matter what the situation is. Four years later I’m thanking God for shattering my dreams to give me the life I have today.

This was some truth that got me through:
"I don't think the way you think. The way you work isn't the way I work."
God's Decree.
"For as the sky soars high above earth, so the way I work surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think. Just as rain and snow descend from the skies and don't go back until they've watered the earth, Doing their work of making things grow and blossom, producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry, So will the words that come out of my mouth not come back empty-handed. They'll do the work I sent them to do, they'll complete the assignment I gave them.
Isaiah 55:8-11

Finally! After years of thinking about it, I have now entered the wonderful world of blogging!!

I love to journal and do it often but no one ever sees my crazy thoughts (I hope!). This blog will be like my journal but for you to read.... all about how I'm living, learning and dreaming... so stay tuned. I will also probably write about the things that impassion me. Last year I wrote an article on the sex industry and people encouraged me to write more, so I'll try.

Small disclaimer before I begin- I cheated my way through high school and I think I only read my first book in college. I often get my work edited because although my thoughts might be good, I don't have a way with words like all those smart people do... so this is me, raw and unedited.

Enjoy!