Of insecurities and intimacy

I got home few hours ago from our prayer meeting and dinner with Antiochers. It is always fun to spend Saturday nights with them, always a time well spent.

We started late with our meeting and we've only just begun with our opening sharing when the lights went out. We saw something sparked outside the church and found out that there was no electricity at nearby streets, too. But since nothing can stop our prayer meeting, we gathered three candles to give us light so we could see every one in the circle.

It is always good too, to have people who listen to what has happened to you the whole week, whether it was good or bad; they would listen. Whether it was about your personal feelings or someone else's stories, they'd keep their ears open.

We skipped singing songs for the opening liturgy to describing the talk giver for the night. Jade told me that she would be giving the talk that night that's why I was one of her 'Angels' who prayed for the smooth delivery of her talk. The topic was Intimacy.

She made us write our insecurities in a tiny piece of paper, and told us to put them in a tiny plastic, which she said 'would be thrown after the talk.' We did not expect that all those written in tiny pieces of paper would be revealed, and that we needed to reveal ourselves to the group. Then followed the sharing of insecurities with one another, and ended with how we can help ourselves to not feel that way.

I felt how brave each one of us earlier to really disclose to others, whatever makes us feel insecure. Being able to disclose is finally the first step to recognize that we have our own insecurities; by being aware of them is accepting that they are real. And how does intimacy help? With our intimate relationships with friends, family, loved ones and most importantly with God, we learn that there are people who will accept us no matter how bad we see ourselves. By and by, we'll learn to accept ourselves, including our own light and darkness, our own strengths and weaknesses.

The talk ended with a challenge to let people see how intimate our relationship with God is, that everything we do, we do to the glory of Him, so people will see how great God is, in us.

And so, I'd like to share this beautiful verse from the bible that says how God loves us so much. And I thank the talk giver, Jade, because those I heard earlier was just exactly what I need to hear. Also, thanks Grace for preparing and sharing dinner with us.

"The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me." 

~ John 17:22-23