Feb 24-25
I seriously didn't think I'd make it. We were an hour away from meeting all the girls and women from our church to carpool to the mountain cottage where we were having our women's retreat and the bad news was a little overwhelming. Already we've been told that there was no parking, so instead of having to hike 40 minutes to the cottage (which was a given with all the snow) we'd be hiking even longer. Also, the main speaker had been feeling queasy all day and I just got the call from her husband "how good are you at speaking from someone else's notes?" Uhhhhh...yikes. If it had been up to me, I would have cancelled then and there. But the other organizers didn't want to, so we all piled into cars and away we went!
After dinner, once worship started, I started to feel better. After all, the main speaker might come tomorrow and the hike to the cottage wasn't that bad...and besides, maybe not having a talk, having more time for worship and prayer and hanging out would be better. And it was--the first evening ended well. Saturday I woke up in great spirits, even after the main speaker called and said that she was still really sick and couldn't make it. I had no idea what we would do with 40 women (from ages 14-40+) all day, but the sense that God had something in it for us was exciting.
Each step of the day, God led us in what to do. For me, it was scary...when I'm responsible for a group of people, I don't like not having some kind of plan (because people like plans and get edgy if there's none). Our initial plan was to have Zuzka talk in the morning and then Irka talk in the afternoon. But as we worshipped and prayed after breakfast, it became obvious that God was leading the program, and Irka's talk fit right in with the theme of everyone's prayers. After that, we had mixed age small groups...it was so cool to hear jr high age girls praying for women the age of their mothers! After a very late lunch, we had more worship and prayer together (do you see the theme?) and by then it was time to go.
At the end, I was in a state of happy shock. It worked! Everything flowed, and not only, but women left the weekend feeling unified, relational awkwardness was healed, and some women who had been on the fringe were connected. And I was humbled by how much these women passionately love and pray for the unbelievers in their lives. The next day at church, the love and unity was still present among us and washed through the whole congregation. I'm so thankful that something I wanted to cancel was so good, really good; I'm so thankful for God's clear guidance at each step; I'm so thankful that He keeps loving His church to wholeness. :)
