Today's witness is me talking about how amazing the "Come As You Are" retreat. We have all seen God working in our lives. However, we might not all be aware it is God working in our lives. This is why it is so important we start talking about it more. The more we share our experiences, the more people understand how God works and how much He truly loves us. If you would be willing to share any experience of how God has worked or is working in your life, please email me at catherine@findingtruenorthcoaching.com or click here. It won’t take up much of your time, and your story could be just the story that someone needs to hear today. Prayerfully consider sharing. Everyone has a story, and the world needs to hear them. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Today, I want to tell you about the retreat I had a few weekends ago. I felt like I would have more people at this retreat than last year. I did have many more people I invited who said they were interested in coming. However, most said they wanted to go but could not make it for the weekend that I booked the retreat house. Three weeks before the retreat, I asked the retreat director, Nancy, a question, and at that time, I only had four people signed up. She told me that she could not pay her staff to come in for just four people. I totally understood this and yet was devastated that I may have to cancel the retreat.
Nancy was super sweet and said that I could still use the retreat house to have the retreat, I would just need to provide the food. She said she would reduce the amount of money that I needed to pay to use the retreat house and that she and her husband would take care of reheating the food, picking up takeout, or helping with whatever we decided to do for food for the weekend. She said she didn’t want me to have to cancel on those who had already signed up. I prayed about it and felt like the Lord still wanted me to have the retreat, even if it was just for four people.
Over the course of the next few weeks, I had four more people sign up, so we were up to 8. Then, two of them had things come up, and they were unable to come. We were down to 6, but with me, that was seven, and I thought that was an ok number. I had wanted more to come, but I understood that people had things going on that weekend. About a week before the retreat, I talked with a friend of mine, and she said she was able to come. This brought us up to 8, including myself. I thought that was a pretty good number. Then, the Wednesday before, another friend asked if she could come. She said she didn’t originally sign up because she needed to cover for someone at church, but that person came home from her trip early, and she was free to come. Then, on Friday morning, another friend called up and asked if it was too late for her to come. She really needed a retreat weekend and was wondering if she could come. I checked with the retreat house, and Nancy said it was not a problem. So, the final count was 10 of us at the retreat.
I thought this number was small, but those in attendance were happy that there weren’t too many people because it meant they didn’t have to be nervous spending the weekend with 40 other women that they didn’t know. They all got to know each other pretty well. By the end of the weekend, they were hugging each other, exchanging numbers and Facebook profiles, and promising to keep in touch. It was such a great weekend, and it was really great to see the beginning of what I know will be some amazing friendships. I think that is part of the magic of retreat. There are so many nice parts about the retreat: the talks, the activities, and the food, but one of the best is the fellowship with others going through the same kind of stuff. We may not all be going through the exact same stuff, but we are all going through stuff, and to get the opportunity to spend a weekend with other people who are going through stuff and who also love Jesus is a great thing!
Remember above when I said Nancy said I could still use the retreat house, but I would need to provide the food? I was trying to think of what I should do for food. I thought maybe I could do takeout, like pizza and pasta, or maybe grinders. However, now there were ten people, and takeout would get expensive. And what would I order that everyone would like? I decided it would be good to do casseroles. This way, I could make them ahead of time throughout the week, and it wouldn’t be a lot of work for Nancy and her husband. They could just put them in the oven to reheat them.
I spoke with my sister Liz, who is a master party planner. Well, her day job is as a counselor, but her passion is party planning, and she is so good at it. She also loves meal planning and meal prep. She said she could come over the weekend before, and we could make stuff and freeze it. She and another sister, Dee, came over the Sunday before, and we made four quiche, two nondairy egg casseroles, beef stew, chicken noodle soup, and two ranch chicken and potato casseroles. It was amazing because it only took a few hours, and yet we had both days of breakfast taken care of; we had one dinner and one lunch taken care of. I had decided the other dinner would be a chicken and stuffing casserole that I couldn’t make in advance because it is not great to freeze stovetop stuffing. I was also going to cook up some hamburger meat for the second lunch so we could have tacos. What seemed like it was going to be really difficult turned out to be really easy, and everyone ended up really happy with the food.
When it finally came time for the actual retreat, it was amazing! Everyone hit a lot of traffic, so we started late, and yet no one seemed to mind. We started with introductions, and then we ate dinner together. Over the course of the weekend, I gave four talks on the theme’s topic, which was “Come as you Are,” and then I gave two other talks. One was on the reckless love God has for us, and one was on how endless God’s forgiveness is. We also had some free time, Confession and Mass were also available for those who wanted to go. We did an illuminated Rosary where we had tea light candles laid out in the formation of rosary beads, and we lit each candle, well, turned each candle on, as we said each prayer. It was beautiful.
We also had three people who were healed of pain during the retreat. My sister’s back had been hurting her the whole car ride to retreat and for the whole night at retreat. She mentioned it before going to be, so I asked if I could pray over her for healing. She agreed, and God healed all the pain in her back. She was able to go to sleep with no pain, and it did not return. Another woman had fallen several months ago and hurt her elbow. She also had a brace on her wrist because she was told it was bone on bone in her wrist. I asked if I could pray over her for healing, and she said yes. After a few minutes of prayer, God took away some of her wrist pain. She was hesitant to move the wrist too much to test if it was pain-free because if she moved it a certain way, it was pretty painful. However, 30 minutes later, she was moving it all around pain-free! Hallelujah, God is so good!!
Finally, my niece was also on retreat. She came up to me on Sunday morning and said that she needed me to pray over her foot. She said it had been sore for several weeks now, and it wasn’t going away. She was wearing support in her shoe, and that was helping, but she just wanted the pain gone. It was funny, too, because when I pray using the Encounter Ministries model, I always begin by asking them to ask Jesus if He wants to heal them. When I asked her, she didn’t even hesitate. She immediately said, “Yes, I know He wants to heal me. He said it's time to end this,” or something like that. She was so confident God would heal her, and I thought that was such a beautiful thing. I prayed for a few minutes over her foot, and then she walked around to test it out. The pain was gone. Her foot was healed. It was amazing and wonderful. She was so happy! We all just marveled at how good God was throughout the whole weekend. Several of the ladies said that they had breakthroughs while they were journaling through the various info they learned on retreat.
God is so good. If you have never been to a retreat, I invite you to find one and to go. I know many of us think retreats are just for holy people. Yet, the reality is they are for everyday people who love the Lord and just want to have some time away from other people who love the Lord. Regardless of what the retreat topic is or what is planned for the retreat, just that time away from life where you can focus on God is enough to make it worth it. Give it a try, what have you got to lose? I hope you will consider joining me on my next retreat. I will keep you posted on when that is. I am hoping to find somewhere to have one in the springtime.