Last weekend I went away for a few days on the ladies retreat at our church. Initially I was looking forward to the retreat as a time to connect with women, relax and sleep; I came home realizing that there are way to many women to connect with, relaxing is hard when you're away from home and sleep is overated.
A lovely speaker spoke to us, her messages were amazing and her voice was soothing. Yay for the English. The whole weekend was focused on Matthew 11:28; "Come to me all who are weary....and I will give you rest for your souls."
There were four main sessions focusing on different aspects of the verse; come, learn, trust and abide. I plan to be doing different posts on each one over the next month, as a reminder to myself of what I learned and was challenged by.
I was really challenged by recalling how many times I go away for these weekends and come home with my head full of knowledge that I don't look at again. This time it will be different. The sessions were like lectures, only she talked to us in completely relational terms and with a friendly attitude. It felt like each message was tailored to me, until I turned to the person sitting next to me and she said the same thing and the lady beside her said the same thing.....
It was so nice to be retreat-ed to the love of God. To hear it from an academic point of view and have it touch my heart. I came home looking forward to each day between this retreat and the next one, instead of already looking forward to the next one.
It was so nice that when I came home I just giggled. The sink had some dishes in it with a bit of water, the vaccuum cleaner was out and plugged in, the trash was somewhat gathered and everyone was asleep in the girl's room. I giggled because over all of these things the smell of pancakes filled the air. It is our sunday routine that I get to get myself ready while Nick makes pancakes for the girls and takes care of breakfast. He tried to be a bit of mom while I was gone, but he didn't get so caught up in trying that he forgot to be dad, and that made me smile and giggle.
2 comments:
that is great!
Dear Amanda,
I am looking forward to reading more posts like this.
I remember going on retreats and being amazed at how the speaker knew what I needed at that moment.
You are right, there is always so much that is learned at the weekends and them after a while we forget to build on what we learned and go back to the way we were.
Isn't everyday life wonderful. All those moments, good and not so good is what makes up our life. It is so easy to lose track of those precious moments. These are what memories are made of.
Hugs to everyone. See you in a few weeks.
God bless
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