I had the privilege of hearing my friend Anna Courie speak.
She has published a book, Christ Walk, which is a spiritual approach to
physical fitness. You can read more about it here.
Anna and I met in college. We had some common friends and have
often been at the same weddings and football tailgates. Anna was one of the
visitors we had in our June
family experience the result of which was realizing how much we are loved.
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| Nana's Hibiscus - photo by KDW |
Anna’s speaking engagement was part of my local writer’s
group’s Christian Writers’
Showcase, an event I originally declined to assist with because Christian
writing is not my genre. I did end up speaking on self-editing,
giving a basic English professor’s take on preparing your work for publication.
Also, I recruited Anna.
In all the years Anna and I have known one another, I have
never heard the story of how she became a Christian, nor heard her experience
of being rendered deaf by an illness when she was very young. She shared both
during her talk on Saturday and I found myself moved by her story.
I also felt a slight envy toward Anna’s conviction in her
faith. She felt wrapped in it, strengthened by it, meant to be part of it and
meant to have it as part of her. I thought about the intellectuality with which
I approach my faith and felt a small regret that I didn’t have a passionate, acute-transformation
story like hers.
Then I wrote this down on the paper I had in my lap:
God is the source of life.God is the source of love.God is the ground of being.
And I remembered my faith story. I remembered the moment in
which I first came to my faith.
