Group spiritual direction

Dear friends, I hope all of you are doing well and pray that you and your families are blessed with a lot of joy and happiness. As I continue to figure out "what's next" in my life, tonight I started one new journey and that was to meet with what is call "group spiritual direction".  This is a small group of people, lead by a trained/certified spiritual director, who are led in a specific group prayer technique. For me, participating in some type of group prayer is so special and enhances my prayer life...for the more I learn about my faith, the more I realize that I don't know...and by praying with others, I'm able to learn so much from them. Thus, the group spiritual direction process goes like this: 1. Brief silence2. Spiritual director reads a bible passage twice3. 5 minutes of silence as one relfects on what the passage meant to them4. A group member has 5-8 minutes to describe how the passage touched them or what it meant to them5. Other group members provide words of encouragement and observations6. The group holds hands, the group member states what their prayer intentions are, and the group prays in silence for the member7. Repeat steps 4-6 for each member It was a wonderful experience.  For me, probably the most meaningful part was when we had an opportuity to pray for each other.  I love to pray for others...and many folks probably have no idea that I prayer for them...however, it blows my mind that others would pray for me.  When it was my turn to speak and then later hold hands and know that others were praying for my intentions was something that means more to me than I could put into words. Tonight's session was just an introduction to the "group spiritual direction" process...so that folks could experience it and then decide if it was something they wanted to continue to pursue.  I'm certainly going to do so and therefore am excited to start next week...when I will meet the group members I will pray with over the next few months. The reading that we prayed as a group was John 2:35 through John 2:39.  One of the common feelings a lot of us had was, like John's disciples in the reading, all of our individual journeys in faith...and our present day journey to try and answer "what's next?".