Station: [8] Desert

Paul tells us: Three years I have withdrawn. I digested this word before Damascus. Slowly, everything inside me has rearranged itself. That takes time. All the experiences I had with Jesus followers, women and men, came back to me. Reorganized. I had hated them because they divided my Jewish religion. Desert means: not distracting myself, being completely with myself. Nothing happens in the desert. The desert is exhausting because you are completely confronted with yourself. In the desert I found myself, I found strength and joy. Then I went to my home town of Tarsus. One day Barnabas turned up there and took me to Antioch on the Orontes to join a community of Jesus followers.