women's reteat

This weekend I went to the TRF women's retreat. It was held at Camp Bradley in Bandon, OR. Our family has been attending TRF for about 1 year now, and we still have not made many friends. So, I felt that this weekend would be a good time to meet some new people and perhaps spark some new friendships. I rode to retreat with Des, the only person I knew from church that was going. In fact, upon our arrival at camp, I reminded her of my lack of friends and asked her not to leave me alone. Honestly, it was like traveling with my husband, because no sooner had I said that, she disappeared into the dorms while I was fishing chapstick out of my purse. Nice.

The weekend was full of good food (love not having to cook or clean up!), great worship (the songs were some of my faves), and fun games (speed-loving, who'd of guessed?). More importantly though, there was time to meet with God - to have one-on-one quiet time with the Lord. The women's leadership team put together 3 workshops; faith, hope, and love. We were to choose one to attend, and I knew right away that love was the one I should go to. I have been challenged lately to focus on 2 principles; loving God and loving people - so it seemed quite appropriate for me to attend the love workshop, especially since "the greatest of these is love" (1Corinthians 13:13b) and love is where I am the weakest. So...I went to the hope workshop...

Here's how that happened. As I was reading through the material, I truly felt like I was "okay" in the areas of hope and faith. I feel like God is allowing me fullness in those areas right now - possibly so I can work on other areas that need serious help. So, through my meditating on that, I decided I was being self-righteous in declaring that I was strong in the faith and hope departments and chose to remedy that by ignoring the pull I felt toward the love workshop. Again, nice.

The hope workshop was great, I found myself agreeing with the principles presented by Darla (loving her more every time I meet with her), and I left the workshop in the same place as where I entered it; knowing that my hope is in the promises of God and my eternal salvation through Jesus Christ. After the workshop I spent quiet time with God to reflect on the workshop, ideas presented, and my personal walk with my Lord. I spent a lot of time wrestling with the truth of knowing where my faith and hope lie, and feeling like it wasn't okay to be so certain. Satan is a sneaky, deceitful creature. He had me spinning in circles, questioning my motives and wanting me to be weak where God has made me strong. This is not to say that I'm not plenty weak in other areas - remember before, when I said that I need to work on love...well, you could add to that pride, selfishness, contentment...

Through the power of the Holy Spirit I was finally able to distinguish God's word from Satan's. Once I stopped trying to fix something that wasn't broken, I was able to focus my attention to the areas of my life that God is calling me to work on (see above). And while I may have mighty faith and hope right now, I know that is because God made me this way, and I must humbly walk with Him and thank Him daily for gifts such as these.

I went to retreat to make some new friends, but God met me there and told me it's okay to be full with Him, and allowed me to rest in His presence and greatness. He renewed my spirit and refocused my attitude. I went to retreat full. Because of Him, I was fully blessed by the weekend and the women around me...so I left retreat overflowing.