Renewed!

I had a wonderful opportunity to go to a Ladies' Spiritual Renwal. It is called "Come before Winter". We left on March 10th to our destination of Watrous (Manitou Springs) and stayed until Friday March 14th. My mom came along to babysit Isaac, and my friend, Allison's little baby girl, Caitlin.

It is hard to say in words what a wonderful awesome experience this was. Life changing. A glimpse of heaven. No kiddn'! We were pampered spiritually and physically!

This was something I was going to pass up. I got email after email regarding the renewal.....ignored it. Someone handed me a printed copy of it, ignored it. Then my friend, Allison......said "Laurie look into this"......then another friend, Sabra said "I am going to this, you should look into it".........sooooo, do you think God was trying to tell me something! :) I obeyed! :) and I am so glad I did.

We didn't have one on one with many of the women there, but there is such a closeness between all of us that were there. My relationship with Christ has strengthened, and I have come to the realization that to be a servant of God, doesn't necessarily mean that right now I ought to be leading different functions, feeding the poor, etc...(those are all wonderful things to be doing, don't get me wrong). I have been struggling with feeling guilty that I am not doing enough.........but came to the realization that I am serving God through ministering to my children and husband! We each studied a specific section of Philippians, but each of us came out with different meanings. We each had to present our meanings.......that's hard to do.......but it is amazing how the Holy Spirit works (sometimes I don't think we give him enough credit). But I spoke words up there, that I didn't even plan on speaking, and cried in front of all these women (I HATE crying in front of people). God broke through to my heart.

We were treated like princesses. Well, I guess we were all princesses of Christ :) But we were treated with little gifts more than once a day, meals were made for us (YUMMY ONES!!), got to relax in the mineral water, visit with friends, make new friendships that we all hold dear.

I don't have all the pics yet of the retreat.......but here is a glimpse of some of the relaxing moments..........