Hi There :)

First of all... Happy Holy Week! I hope everyone had a wonderful Palm Sunday experience and that this week would be full of remembrance and blessings for you all!!

About meditation... I guess I had never heard meditation described as "emptying your mind". I have always understood meditation to be a form of extreme concentration or focus on a specific thing.

When I did yoga for the first time, they told us to meditate on self-healing. I basically spent the first ten minutes focusing on doing the poses correctly, and the rest of the time trying to focus on myself and what I needed to do to revive myself. It was exhausting! I finally let my mind wander and found myself reflecting on my morning and all the ways I had seen God working already that day. I prayed and wondered and talked with God instead of focusing on "self improvement" and felt SO much more revived than I had at the beginning. I decided I liked yoga! I also decided that meditation had a much different connotation in a yoga class than it does in our spiritual lives.

Meditation on the Lord brings a sense of unique and essential fulfillment that I often try to look for in other places (maybe like yoga? haha) This part of the devo got to me SO much..."Instead of drinking in His presence, I often substitute meditation on the Lord for activities that I think will refresh me fully: sleep, coffee, friends, no work, nature." I do this ALL the time. Sleep becomes quite the luxury (and necessity) in your freshman year of college. As does coffee. And a whole lot of other things I think I need to refresh myself fully. I'm always missing the reality that God is truly the way to full revival and contentment.

And yet, I think back on my day and remember that I had communion twice at different church services. At both services, I made a point to really eat and drink in remembrance of Jesus Christ and his sacrifice. I meditated for a good 3 minutes before I ate my juice- dipped pieces of bread, and God opened my eyes to a new way of taking communion. He revealed to me that Revelation 3:20 is 100% true ("Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.") I simply had to clear my mind and focus on His great love and sacrifice, just as He asked me to. I listened to His knock and received a full sense of humility and love being poured out on me as I meditated on His greatest act of love. I want to consciously do this before I partake in communion each time from now on, and meditate on Jesus' sacrifice and unfathomable love for His children. And this was so refreshing and JUST what I needed on this Palm Sunday. Praise be to God! Hosanna in the Highest!

Please pray for me this week as I make an effort to "Stop and Listen. Hear the voice and open the door. Meditate." I will be praying for this for all of you, as well.

Have a JOYOUS Holy Week, everyone!
Peace and Blessin's :)

Hannah