October Ladies Retreat

I had a great time at the Ladies Retreat this past weekend! We had times of fun, good discussion as well as good teaching and singing. I'm either great at condensing things down to a point of non-information or not very good at summarizing things down enough. (The condensing too much often is done to my family - So far all they got out of me about the Ladies retreat was that "it was good"). The too much or not short enough parts usually come when I start writing here. At least this way, those who don't want to hear about it, don't have to read it. It's almost 10, so I think I'll just use tonight's post to describe the first night.

I drove to Lake Martin with Tammy. I enjoyed the time to catch up on her life. Its fun to have the time to chat about the many aspects of life that she is going through as her kids get older. Hearing dreams and learning more about where people have been and desires they have for the future is neat. We enjoyed the short drive and got there in time to relax for a little bit before the first session entitled "Getting God."

Mary Heather was our speaker. She's an awesome mother of 9 kids who I've known for many many years. She had an American Girl doll club at here house while I was in high school which I helped out at since my sisters went to it one summer. Her family attends our church and I've gotten to know some of her children through AWANA and Sunday School classes there. Mary Heather teaches the ladies Sunday school class. Though I've never gone to the class, I've heard from others that it's an awesome class. For the first session, she spoke about some of the things that keep us from God: Wrong ideas about God, sin, the flesh, unforgiveness and self-centeredness.

She illustrated how sin and our reaction to sin can vary so drastically and have terrible consequences by having us look at the lives of both Saul and David. Both men sinned: Saul offered a sacrifice instead of waiting for Samuel (1 Sam 15) and David sinned through adultery with Bathsheba (2 Sam 11).

They both sinned, yet Saul responded by blaming the people and claiming to be doing what God said. Saul was so self centered that he even blamed Samuel for being the cause of his sin because he did not show up in time to make the sacrifice. Only when Saul heard that God had rejected him as king did Saul seem to maybe repent. Even then, it seems like he was only repenting for show, so that Samuel would honor him in front of the people.

David's reaction couldn't have been different. I look at David's sin and would tend to even consider it to be worse, yet through David's response, God forgave him. David immediately acknowledged that he had sinned against God. He didn't blame anyone else, but turned to God. The other example of David had to do with his desire to build a temple for God. He had the idea, yet it wasn't God's idea for David to do. Instead of being upset that God didn't want to honor him that way, David responds with humility and thanks God for his promise to establish David's kingdom forever.

Saul was self-centered, but David was God focused. Saul didn't want to wait on God's time-table, but David was glad to allow his son to have the honor of building the temple.

Which one more represents who you are?

After that session, we enjoyed refreshments and then Marilyn led us in some of her family's "crazy group games!" The pictures of Bibity Bibity Bop were a lot of fun to take as people had to think fast to act like an elephant, rabbit, or kamikaze. There was laughter all around as we tried to think quick and act crazy! Eventually the group game broke up and ten of us went to the cabin where we continued playing games until about midnight. We played a fun game of Taboo. It's amazing how quickly some words are gotten! Sometimes brains are linked in a crazy way. Soon it was time to get some sleep (as it is now!).