A testimony of Bruna Bloise
Before my experience with God I was feeling lost, I couldn’t find true peace, it was very fleeting. I had a very great desire to get closer to God, to understand Him more, and even to understand more about the Church, but felt like a lost mission and I didn’t know where to start. I began to pray more and I believe that the Holy Spirit guided me to Shalom. There, I went to the retreat during Lent in 2022 and had a profound experience with God.
I left the retreat with a happy heart, in such great peace and I went back to my day-to-day life and Jesus began to inspire movements within me for a change of life. Some seeds were thrown into my heart there and they began to gradually mature and transform, others were being thrown little by little.
I started to attend the prayer group more often and slowly I started to pray more and more. Today, I no longer see myself without prayer, it is prayer that makes me continue, that makes me feel well. I was a very anxious person before my experience with God. Although I still need to understand God’s timing, to grow in patience, I no longer feel that tightness in my chest and the strong negative thoughts have also passed away. I realize that in this time of growing in spiritual maturity so far, confession has helped me a lot. In confession I repent of my sins, receive guidance, and those specific aspects are either healed or begin to healed.
It was in a confession during the retreat that I had my experience with God, that Jesus placed the greatest seed of all time in my heart. I decided to confess that I lived with my fiancé and without any judgment, but actually, with much love, the Priest opened the doors of Shalom for my marriage, if I so desired. I didn’t understand much about marriage, I didn’t know where to start but I became very interested (looking back I now understand how much I wanted and needed to get married, how much of that situation, the lack of understanding of what marriage really is and the many worldly concepts I had about marriage, was a big part of my anxiety).
And it was in the preparation for marriage that I came to understand more about patience, love, and simplicity. Of all these, would highlight the experience of Genuine Love, a love that seeks nothing in return, that I had in Shalom. The whole community decided to help me in such a beautiful way, something I had never seen before, something I didn’t even know existed, or that I deserved.
At the same time, I also felt very loved by my family, all the close family members decided to help me with the wedding and were all very happy. The wedding day was a very special day, even what I thought could be a problem, became a blessing, God provided everything, much more than what I deserved or needed. It was more of an experience with God, of learning how to manifest a Genuine Love, and it was Shalom that provided me with all of this. And that became a testimony that touched and continues to touch the heart of my family as well.
Since then, my relationship with my husband has matured greatly and God has provided and organized everything for our family. Soon after, God began giving me a deeper understanding about family and about life. Today I realize that it was God’s values that I so desperately needed and continue to need in order to find peace.
In that time of anxiety, I was very close to my realities, I did not accept what was out of my control, I sought professional and financial fulfillment, success, as if they were the most important things for me. I still have a lot to organize inside of me, but the more I let God be the center of my life, the more I have peace.
Of course, I want to have a more organized professional life, a healthy financial life, but God has introduced me to other projects, such as family. God has introduced me to love and has given me so many graces, and more and more I learn that true peace is in God.