original story of call to communion

It came quiet at first, the whisper of God’s voice, “Come away my beloved,” and I sensed the desire to go deeper. After school, I would often escape to the creek on the west side of our property to wash away the grime and confusion of high school. I called it my trysting place…a place of meeting and loving God. Nothing in those years came easy, but the running water over the cement blocks was the reminder that there was a deeper stream, more important message to live for than collecting boyfriends like charms on a bracelet.



I had watched my mother’s prayer life from a distance and got in the middle of intercessory sessions with my aunts. They warmed me and I leaned in like a camper toward a campfire. God always answered right there, comforting with His presence and then later gifting them with amazing stories of His miraculous work.


Later as I grew up in my evangelical church, I got truly confused. The altar calls drew us in for salvation and then full-time ministry. That was Sunday morning. That was it.  The understanding I began to receive was that I was saved in order to serve. Period. The whole Westminister Chatechism I had memorized years earlier in Sunday school that our purpose in life was “to love God and enjoy Him forever,” did not seem to fit the worldview of my new church. I became a worldclass fruit chaser. Winning souls and ministry in the church became my focus and though I still felt the call to be with God and listen to His Voice, I didn’t know how that fit into this vision of Christianity. It felt too slow in this fast-paced sales evangelism world.


Then in college I came upon an ancient strain of Christianity, the Eastern Orthodox, and was mesmerized. The purpose of life, the Eastern Orthodox said, was to be in communion with God. In light of a hunger for union, all matters of legalism quickly melted away. The question of morality then becomes not, “will this action break a law,” but, “ will it break our communion?”