All Saints, Lagoa

EDITOR, A very personal view of one of the Algarve’s best kept beautiful secrets Usually I would never go to church. Not that I’ve had bad experiences at church. I just didn’t have good ones and didn’t feel right there at all.

So, how did I, a young German lady, end up going to a small church, All Saints in Lagoa every Sunday for over 3 months now?

First, it’s important for me to state that I am not a Christian in a religious sense because I don’t confirm a lot of what men made of spirituality.

So, religion is not what I am going to church for. It’s the magnificent presence of Spirit what I come for. Bathing in it. Filling and nourishing my own human divinity and power with the Universal Love and the Holy Spirit.

And I came to a ground-shaking realization: Being so anti-church did way more in my life then distancing from something I don’t confirm. I had been disconnecting myself from the universal source energy that is Love. Not the romantic love, but divine love, that says ‘Your are the Beloved. You are meant exactly the way you are. And you are here for a reason.’ On a very deep, unconscious level I didn’t feel loved, which as I realized led to various types of struggles in my life, not being able to figure out what was the origin. Most of us probably are familiar with issues of lacking self-love, looking for outside confirmations or a purpose of our existence, just to name some.

Also, I discovered, that being out of divine tune, I had been limiting myself in experiencing and expressing pure joy which is represented by our inner child. In church, through receiving the blessing and being filled with the powerful energies of the Holy Spirit, I experienced a huge release. My inner child with her natural joyous and sensitive aspects felt loved and explicitly welcomed again – in the world and in my life.

It was the unconditional love through the Holy Spirit that made me truly feel that I AM the beloved. That I AM meant exactly the way I am, and that I AM here to be all of my true self.

I don’t pretend to be completely healed or a better person since I go to church, but it’s true that it brought my spiritual development to a new level which is what I aim for. I keep on working with my inner child, releasing my joy and practicing opening to the Divine Love, because I am now aware of these important keys to my inner freedom and happiness.

This experience at church impacted my life in a way I would have never expected, and I really enjoy the Sunday morning services in the All Saints Church in Lagoa I go to. Maybe visiting this special little church is worth an experience for you as well as it is for me. If you come, please don’t forget to say Hi to me (Sina).

Sina, By email