A Weekend Away

As I mentioned in my last post, this weekend I had the wonderful opportunity of retreating away with some of the women in Cru to Lake Louisa in Louisa, Virginia. Everything about this weekend from the beautiful 2 hour drive down 33, to the rain and thunderstorms, to the talks, to the meals and fellowship was just wonderful, relaxing, and needed.

About 60 women went down on this retreat and enjoyed the comforts of a cozy little lake house. This house was perfect for a large group of people. While the house appeared to be tiny, they sure knew how to squeeze beds into that place! In one bedroom, they had a bunk bed that was beyond your wildest imagination. It was a 4-layer bunk bed with a king on the bottom, a queen on the second layer, then a full, and then a twin on the top. It was the coolest thing I have ever seen and definitely something to remember about this trip. So needless to say, that bed alone could fit many people. Then to the left and right of that there were also two more normal bunk beds with a queen on the bottom and a twin on the top. That room was definitely a cozy one. There were also three other bedrooms with large beds, two comfy couches, and lots of floor space, so everyone had a comfortable place to sleep even though there were so many of us!

As a tradition, it is the senior women who do the speaking. They all had such good and thought-provoking talks and lessons to teach us. I could definitely hear God speaking through them and they all brought so much light into my life. One of my favorite take-aways this weekend was from a talk given by Gen as one of the breakouts about guarding our hearts. Ironically, I have been realizing recently that the term "guarding your heart" is a term that only women really throw around. Most guys are completely clueless as to what exactly this means. But it is something that is so important and something that most women struggle with. Anyways, Gen drew a great illustration of our hearts and of what flows out of them and how truly everything we do and say and think does stem from our hearts. We learned how the root of all of our problems can't be discovered down the river, we have to address the heart issue and make sure that we are filling our God-shaped hole in our hearts with God and not other things. Even though this thought seemed simple and straight-forward it was so eye-opening for me to take in. She discussed how many people think the way to fix their problems is to just remove the thing that is troubling them (or, the thing filling their God-shaped hole). The problem with this, however, is that when we do that we still leave our God-shaped hole empty and Godless. The solution needs to be to go straight to the source, the hole in our hearts, and fill that with God initially, and then as an outflow of that the rest of our life will naturally begin to be put into perspective and order because our priorities are in line. I am so thankful to be a part of Cru and for all of the wise people who teach me so much.

I wrote a few posts ago about the shock of the year wrapping up. It is still hard for me to grasp and I feel like time is literally slipping between my fingers. As summer approaches, however, I really am anticipating it and I know that there is so much in store for me to learn and do coming up. But these next few weeks I'm expecting to be crazy, hectic, and stressful, but then again the end is in a sight and a break is on its way.