The Art of Reinvention and the Necessity of His Distraction.
All about where is God when it hurts, and what can we do about it.
There’s nothing like the opportunity to reinvent yourself. Pop stars do it all the time.
But for us “normal” people, we don’t tend to take the opportunities that life presents us to start over, reinvent, or do things differently.
It's silly, but for as long as I can remember, Cass has had the same hairstyle. Come to think of it, so have I. Oh, except for that Covid beard… Check it out below!
And in a season of new beginnings, our hair didn’t change. But we recognised we needed God’s help with internal, spiritual reinvention.
So for reinvention to happen, Cass and I felt we needed to get away and seek God. We realized that if we took the time to pray and reflect on what God had taught us over the course of our lives and in our previous seasons, we could build on the past rather than just repeating things and not going anywhere new.
I love the coincidences of God!
Incredibly, the day before we left for our retreat, Amanda Viviers sent us her workbook called “Begin Again.” It arrived in the mail as a gift at just the right time. It’s an “end-of-season guided journal.” So we packed the car with all we needed, including Amanda’s workbook, and embarked towards the seaside, on the process of self-reflection and rediscovery.
(Fun Fact: Did you know that the word “coincidence” only appears once in the Bible? Jesus used it in the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:31)
The time away was filled with sunshine and wide, sandy beaches. The landscape was so peaceful that I was convinced we no longer needed to do any reflecting after all. Despite this, Cass was committed. I tried everything to avoid the process, urging her to “go for one more swim.” She wouldn’t let me get away with it, so, with the sun on our faces and the soundtrack of the sea, we opened up the workbook and our journals and started.
Journaling is hard work!
I don’t know if you journal, but I find it difficult when I do. However, once I start and the words begin to flow, it is definitely a freeing experience.