The Most Important Moment

Thanks for asking this Jonathan. I have replied in full on my blog (http://misspeltyouth.com/content/response-most-...) but in summary, reading Velvet Elvis was the event that had the most significant impact on my spiritual growth.

Why? Because it helped me find my way again, reminding me that Jesus was right there on the road next to me ready to show me the wonder of God's good news.

Matthew, Velvet Elvis had a profound effect on me too. Not the biggest but one of them.

Not a single event, but rather a series over a period of just over a year. Three years ago I lost my job teaching in a Christian school and the only job I had for five months was driving a charter bus that shuttled troops at a nearby army base. A year later, my mom died after suffering from Alzhiemer's and then my dad died a month later.

God used these things to bring me to the point where I had nowhere to turn but to him. Things have been a lot different since then.

Your picture is one of them, but for a strange reason. I was in seminary--literally *in* church history class--when the planes hit the Twin Towers, and the way that community dealt with grief and forgiveness and healing was amazing. But as I watched people move on with their lives and realized that I was still hurting and depressed and scared, I had to come to a new understanding of being a minister, a wounded healer, if you will.

Reading _Listening for God_ by Renita Weems. You mean it's normal to have times of doubt?!?!?!

Becoming a mother, and finally learning what it is to love someone without a gender pronoun, to create and nurture life in my own self, and to deal with incredible joy in the midst of incredible pain.

"Velvet Elvis" certainly started a ball rolling in a profound way for me also; but one single event, I am not sure! At the moment my life feels like a jumble sale (I think you call them rummage sales in US) and in the mess - there is not one single event that stands out, but I will tell you a little about a time that has changed the way I think and act.

A few years back (2000-2004) I did a lot of voluntary for our local drugs project (harm reduction rather than 12 steps) - before I did this I had never done anything like it, I lived the white affluent lifestyle (I guess I still do) but over the years I spent working with folk who were chaotic, desperate, hopeless and hope-filled all at the same time, my life was changed as I learnt about acceptance, compassion, love, how to cook up and how not to kill yourself (although recognising that sometimes that might seem the only option). I think its fair to say I learnt more about humanity from here and my fantastic supervisor Wyl (who tragically died in 2004) than I ever did at church, but that's another story!

For me it was leaving our church of 8 years. It hurt and it hurt the people we left but I wouldn't be the person I an today if we were still there. Went from a faith of rules and regulations and opinions, being "afraid" of God to a life of Jesus, to a life with the freedom to love people even if they went to a different church or no church at all (I know, sacrilegious:)

Tobit, it's funny what happens when we get out in the world and discover its brokenness. In some ways its liberating to discover how we can love the loveless.

Daniel, I truly know what you are talking about. Well said, and thanks for sharing.

Your picture was one of them for me. The first thing God spoke to me on that day was "Love your enemies." Which was the exact opposite of the message we heard on Sunday in the meeting.

Showed me that I really did not belong with those people, and freed me to be who God made me to be.

A 4 day camp in April, 1989. It was about God the Father. I have never been the same since.