Double delight

Our "Pathways" retreat has been going well and the participants have shared encouraging feedback about the way it is enriching their relationship with God. One activity earlier in the week involved making a sort of "timeline" of the past few years of your life, so that you could chart the times when you felt close to God or the times when your relationship didn't seem to be going so well, and get an idea of how different situations and circumstances in your life had perhaps influenced the way you connected with God. 

Another activity involved considering nine different "pathways" to experiencing God. Some people find it easiest to connect with God during a corporate worship time; some feel closest to God when they're spending time alone with Him in prayer; still others have the strongest sense of God's presence when they're reading or studying the Bible; and yet others are most conscious of God when they're out in nature and seeing His handiwork in the beauty of creation. And so it was a special treat for this last category of person when the sunshine gave way to a sudden rain shower yesterday and, as we sat down to eat dinner together, we could look out the window and see not just one rainbow, but a huge double rainbow stretching across the valley in front of the house. What a beautiful sight it was against the dark and cloudy sky!