13 March 2026
Dearest Friends,
I want to tell you about an experience I had. An experience of meeting God.
It happened as we gathered into worship at Jordans meeting house last August, at the start of a gathering of Young Adult Friends. As I sat staring at the large open doors, the fresh air and light from outside streaming into the meeting room, the image of a door in my heart came to me. The door in the image was ajar, and some light was coming through. I felt how it was God who was the Light on the other side, gently nudging the door, seeing if it would open further. And I realised then that it was me who was trying to keep the door closed.
All my life I have had a sense of God in my heart. For much of my life, I tried to convince myself that it was a wholly irrational idea. Growing up in the Netherlands, there was a conviction that to believe in God was naïve and misguided. I tried my best to keep the door firmly closed.
When I found Quakers 3 years ago, I found immense relief. I found a community that recognised this sense of God that I had been carrying around with me. I could start to listen to a call I had been feeling since I was a young child. I had found a space without pressure, where I felt held as I explored that call. I cautiously started opening the door.
But for a while, I continued to be cautious. Though the word “God” kept coming through to me, I was still skeptical of the word. I was afraid to embrace the call, fearful of the ways the word had been used to bring harm into the world.
I think I also feared opening the door fully, because I sensed doing so might lead me to recognise a truth in my heart that could disrupt and change my life.
I had wanted to keep a handle on the way I was letting the Spirit into my life. Like a recipe: 2 parts of my Self, 1 part of the Spirit, and mix. Make sure not to add more than a sprinkle of God, or I might become a fanatic, delusional, or worse: be seen as peculiar.
But sitting in Jordans meeting house, I felt how my caution started to dissipate. I felt a gentle, loving, steadfast hand pushing on that door. An invitation. With my dear Friends around me, I finally felt I could let go of my resistance and answer the invitation I had felt all my life. I allowed the door in my heart to swing open – joyfully the Light streamed in, and I felt a true sense of coming home.
It became crystal clear to me: God is right here. I encounter God in my heart. It is an encounter with a boundless God, who is simultaneously a tangible guiding Presence, holding me in endless Love.
This all happened at the start of the YAF gathering last summer. If I had been on my own, I may have tried to explain away this experience, diminishing it. Instead, the rest of the week, we all journeyed together, meeting and getting to know God together. I felt held in a community of Friends, exploring what it meant to truly open our hearts to a Guide present with us. I felt how we were met by a God who came down and dwelt among us, who dined with us and worshipped with us and who spoke to us and through us. In turn, we brought all of ourselves: our joys, our concerns, our grief, our fear for the future. We were bathed in the Light together.
I cannot express my gratefulness for that week: it changed my life. Meeting with the vastness of God has changed my life. It’s not that I hadn’t met with God before, or since. It’s also not that the door is always fully open – I find myself trying to close it often enough! But now that I have tasted new life there, I can no longer deny or diminish it. And I find how embracing this presence in my heart is an endless source of strength, comfort, and resilience. For how can I hope to bring Light into a dark world, without truthfully embracing the Light in my own heart?
With Love,
Lia
We feel guided to meet again this summer 12-16 August, for another Young Adult Friends international gathering. Join us: let’s follow the Light home and see where it takes us. You can express interest in joining us here.
You can support the gathering and help us offer financial support to Friends coming from afar at our GoFundMe.
Lia den Daas worships at Jesus Lane meeting in Cambridge, UK, and is a member of Cambridgeshire Area Meeting.