Thank you, Alicia! I love your writings! I’m doing the 40 Days of Decrease and am finding myself really looking forward to Lent! The idea of fasting from anything that keeps us from being close to God is so refreshing and meaningful. I hope I get to see you speak in person one day. Blessings to you on your Lenten journey!

I had a major accident in October last year which left me with a broken femur and wrist, unable to walk or move. I had been praying to know Gods love, acceptance and grace for so many years and never could grasp it in my heart for myself. Over the three months following the accident, everything I knew in life got burnt to the ground. Within four days of leaving the hospital my landlords gave me notice that I would need to vacate the property in 42 days as they were moving back in (right on Christmas). Unable to walk or move and having only moved into the property 6 weeks earlier, I really didn’t know what to do. What I knew of my physical body also changed indelibly as a metal plate, screws and nail were put in my leg to hold my leg and hip together. In this time, my faith was tested beyond compare. Everything I believed, hoped for felt like it had been taken away. In every way, especially my faith and trust in God, I had to start again. In this time though, the grace of God and his love, being able to trust him, had to become my whole world. I had nothing else and I needed to know his presence in a real, true, deep way that cut to the core of who I was.

I went through the darkest of days when I wanted to give up and set a date to end my life but in everything, God remained faithful. He proved his love to me in a way I have never experienced before. His grace surrounded me though the people he placed in my life and the way he provided for me in every way including a new home which I moved into two days before Christmas just when I had given up hope of finding something.

Two weeks after Christmas I started being able to walk again. It was a complete miracle as a day before I couldn’t even stand. Within ten days though the enemy came in like a flood and suddenly three nerves got jammed in my pelvis and I was no longer even able to sit, walk, drive and barely stand. During the first three months I had still been able to get to church and the hospital to see my eating disorders team. My faith and my body was growing stronger and stronger. Then, being no longer able to sit, it was as if the enemy was trying to come and cut me off at every angle, to stop the work of God in my life. I had at the beginning of the year resolved that this year would be called “free”. God gave me three scriptures:

Luke 5:4 – “launch out into the deep and get ready for a haul”

2 Corinthians 3:17 – “where the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom”

Genesis 1:2 – “the spirit was hovering over the deep waters”

I knew what God was telling me was that I needed this year to go deep with him. To know him like never before. To resolve to no nothing except “Jesus Christ and him crucified”. And that in the “deep” was where the spirit dwelt and that is where freedom lay.

So despite being able to walk, or sit right now, I resolve to go deeper. 40 days of decrease is the beginning of that for me. Thank you Holy Spirit for bringing it into my hands.

6:30 a.m. Started the Lenten Journey by reading Psalm 51: 1-3, 10-12.
I asked, what do I need to release to God Then confessed it. Then, reflected on how Jesus remained true to his mission throughout his testing and remained pure.

Thanks for your new project. A gift to many
Barry