Gratefulness and Rest

I went on a little much needed retreat over this past week. I have amazing friends and family who let me use their home to stay in and who took my kiddos for the 2 days, it was such a blessing. I feel like God has been trying to talk to me and I have been running, not sure why, but a reality struck me about a week ago, that I am addicted to busyness. Yikes! It's true. Although I would tell you that I hate being so busy, I create the busyness by feeling the need to be everywhere all the time doing everything, so I don't have to 'deal with' my stuff. I decided to make myself take 2 full days and retreat. I was dealing with some fear at first...what if God doesn't meet there or gives me the silent treatment or something. Or even worse what if He tells me is something I don't want to hear.



My first day I got all my stuff situated in the room, made sure I had some snacks and water, made sure my bags were in their right spot, made sure my toothbrush was on the bathroom sink, made sure there was toilet paper in the bathroom, made sure my pen was working, made sure that there were enough kleenex in the room and turned on some live IHOP webstream...and...started pacing the floor. Oh my goodness, sit down and shut your brain off, Jamie, I screamed and thus began the 'getting it all out' portion of my retreat. I yelled a whole lot of other stuff too, too R rated to blog about. I am so glad He can handle all that and He just listened. I cried and yelled and cried and yelled some more. It felt amazing. Then I fell asleep.

When I woke about an hour later, I felt completely different, the fear junk was not bugging me and I was able to just sit and read (still not in a listening place yet). I read more than I have read in years in one night. It was good stuff too! My eyes hurt when I went to bed. I slept so good and I had 3 dreams, yes 3. It was incredible. I woke up and wrote them all down.

I decided to go get some coffee so I could stay awake. There was a park with a field that was beautiful and calling my name, so I went straight to the middle of it and laid a blanket down and laid for 2 hours. It felt so amazing to just sit there with the sun on my face, there was a breeze blowing and I felt surrounded by the mountains. It was wonderful. I had an agenda to sit there and journal, but God started talking and I decided to just listen (finally). WOW! I kept thinking I should get up and write all this down, but I couldn't. He just kept talking and talking, it was beautiful, and it was just enough. He told me about how much He loves me and then told me about the dreams I had, and how much He loves me, then He told me about stuff in my marriage and about being a mom and how much He loves me, I am crying writing this because even though there was so much and it was so incredible it was so simple and easy. He met me right where I was. He is so good. He is faithful. That was my most favorite moment of the 2 days.

I went back to the house and read some more. I also felt compelled to read Song of Solomon in The Message Bible...Holy cow! :) Just read it. God is SO in love with us (His people, His church, You, Me). I thought it would be a great book for George and I to study together ;) hee hee hee.



I have been on this journey about finding 'me' for some time now and finally realize there really is no end point to it, we will discover more and more about ourselves as we grow and live in God, because there is so much to Him there is so much to us. I have said many times, I am so afraid to lose myself in the midst of being a mom and wife and that I need to keep up with 'me'. This is such a lie. If I am in God and He in me, then I am not going to 'lose myself'. We go through different seasons in life and I am in the season of being mom and wife. During this season I need to lay stuff in my 'self' down so that I can pour into my 3 blessings. This has been such a struggle for me, knowing how selfish I am and needing to stop being so selfish, but trying to hold on to keeping all my desires and dreams on the forefront. Not that I have to give those up, but they need to be laid down for a season or my kids will be shoved to the side for me to pursue them. The time with my kids is so so short. I want to not have any regrets about lost time with them when they are grown, so I am making a choice to give my family my all in this season and I absolutely believe that God will put more life to my desires and dreams in the end and I will have no regrets. That sounds like a win win to me :) This was a rather lengthy discussion I had with God too during these 2 days. It was good.

I also read through most of the prophetic words and words of encouragement I have received over the past while and that was very cool, several of them I read with such a new clearer perspective and had so much more understanding. I asked some of my closest friends a while back to write 5 things they liked about me. I decided to this because I had such a hard time seeing much good in me at the time. I read those too and I realized I have allowed so much ungratefulness and resentment to come in to my life, which is a large reason for the busyness. So many of the things people said was that I had so much joy, I kept wondering where it had gone. It didn't go anywhere, just needed to let go of some junk. It was so encouraging to read those and actually believe some of it now. I love seeing growth through tough long processes.

I ended up having to leave earlier then I planned to pick up my kids, but I think it was just enough time. I feel so refreshed and that I have purpose to focus on each day. I think I need to do this every few months to be honest. Maybe I wouldn't be so moody and ornery all the time...lol. Happy me, Happy wife, Happy mom, Happy home :).