Ascension Day Reflection

You never know when a day will touch you. Ascension Day 1992, I was walking to the library at the University of Leicester (in England). I was totally focused and stressed about my MA Thesis, on the butchers and tanners of Leicester in the 16th century. I was finishing a year of study in the English Local History department, all funded by the Rotary Foundation (thank you!). I was going to be leaving England in about a month and I was frantically trying to get all of my research done for the thesis. I happened upon the vicar of the Anglican Church I was attending. He said, "are you coming to the Ascension service tonight?" I thought, "no, I'm much too busy for that." But I said, "I would try to be there." And then I realized, I knew, that my life had been changed forever because I really wanted to go to that service, to be in the church that night, every night. Just two months before I had started going to church for the first time in my life at the age of 24. I experienced God's love and came to know something about Jesus Christ and to feel the power of the Spirit.