well, thought i'd do some retreat blogging...
as ken would say, i went to a "valentine's" retreat (feb 13-15, 2004).... and no, it was not a couples retreat, it was a God retreat. and i'm SO glad to say that God met me (and us) there!

being part of the planning subcommittee for retreat, i guess i had a lot of expectations for retreat when we first picked the theme of BROKENNESS. like that one word entails that a lot of things happen... that the lives of people will be changed and... broken. but how God was going to do that was the part that humbled me the most.

the day before retreat (thursday february 12), i had a really long and tiring day. a day where i realized how much i needed God. like i started off that morning at 8:30am-12pm working at the accounting job, then lunch, then from 2:00-3:00pm visiting my kid, then on my way home, i met my coworker and talked to her for 1/2 an hour... made it back to my house at around 4:30pm, then retreat prestudy from 5-7:30pm, then work at the convenient store from 8pm-10pm. by the time i got home i was sooooo exhausted. james and steph had make sushi and tempura when i got home because steph had just finished exams and needed to relax... but i was so tired... so exhausted. i NEEDED downtime, by myself. so i locked myself in my room for an hour and a half. but that hour, God showed me how much i needed Him... He showed me how much i needed to rely on His strength. that everyday, when i'm constantly on the go for more 13.5 hours and by the end of that day, only spend 1/2 with Him in devotions is not enough.... and i let Him start His work in me that evening.

now, onto retreat!! =)
so on friday at 4:30pm, we left to go to Frontier Trails, somewhere 2 hours north of Napanee... and that night, we just had a relaxing time of playing games and small group sharing. i beat my cousin in a game.. =) where we stick an alka selzer tablet on our forehead and then squirt water at the other person and whoever fizzes the other's tablet more wins! hahaha.. =)

saturday, we had a packed day ahead of us, we start off the morning at 7am with a prayer meeting, then breakfast, devotions, bible study and the message... ALL BEFORE LUNCH! so then on the first devos, we studied psalm 51, which is an amazing passage, i must say. then our bible study was on zacchaeus. i guess i wasn't able to get as much out of devos and bible study b/c i had basically gone through the zacchaeus bible study four times with four groups of leaders and had heard it so many times... the sermon was what really hit me. the speaker was Roger Shuttleworth from ACF @ Western.... he was a slow speaker but his message was profound in the way that he saw Scripture in such a literal and simple way that i never noticed it before. anyways, this is what I got out of the first msg...

"When Christ, who is your life appears, then you will also appear with him in glory." - Colossians 3:4
~ the thing is... we always say that Christ is IN my life, but we see here that He IS my life... but IS HE? like the thing that made me think is that we always compare ourselves with non-Christians and say that we have already accepted Christ... but after accepting Him, have we made Christ MY life? It's not that He's in me, it's that He IS me. i can't live two lives and want to live my life AND His life, i can ONLY live His life... and i can only do that when i am willing to die to my own life...

that night, there was another msg... that msg took 2 hours and 15 minutes and many people were falling asleep, but amazingly, this is what i got out of it.
"But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before i was, but I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus." - Galatians 1:15-16
~ the verses prior to this talked about Saul (Paul) who had furthered Judaism and was very zealous about spreading it... but only WHEN God set him apart, was pleased, was when Saul was saved... it is ONLY by God "setting me part" that saved me... it's not what i strive to do but what God has chosen to do in me.

and then the last day, we had the same morning schedule and the morning sermon was about how the Holy Spirit came to people in Acts and how that can be the different ways in which we receive the Spirit in our own lives... i wasn't able to get as much out of this sermon as the other two, but one thing i learned in this sermon is this: if i want to understand anything, i need the Spirit to help me understand... the Spirit is what helps things make sense.

anyways, at the end of this sermon, in the back of my mind, i was thinking... "Has God worked here this weekend? Has He broken the hearts of the people in this fellowship?" i had been praying for the hearts of the people of this fellowship... and even that morning in prayer meeting, i had shared w/ my prayer partner about the burden i had inside to see people changed for God. somehow, i always associated brokenness with crying... and i didn't see anyone cry and i was doubting if people had actually been broken on the inside.. but that was it, the sermon was the last thing on the schedule before lunch and after lunch, we would leave. but you know what? God WAS SOOO FAITHFUL! mike, the guy who was head leader of planning retreat, goes up and says: "I feel that we, as a fellowship, have not cried out to God... let us take this time to cry out to God." and that's exactly what we, as a fellowship, did... and you know what happened? People started crying, people started singing... people crying, people singing. i just knew that God had answered prayer... He was in that room... b/c with such deep msgs like that, it is only the Spirit that could've helped us understand.... it is only the Spirit who could have moved people to tears...
and now, being able to talk to people about how retreat went for them... i can see that God was working through people and IN people this weekend. may we all be able to let God be our lives...