I made a harsh realization this weekend.  Even though I’ve been closer to God in the last few months than I have been in years, even though this season in my life has me leaning on Him more than ever– I’ve been retreating from Him. I’ve been shying away when He convicts me in one certain area.  This area is tender…any mention of it makes my heart quiver.  I’m still very broken.  So, I’ve built up a shell around my hurt, kind of like a scab, or scales.  The problem is that the scales have gotten in the way of the wound really healing.  What I’ve done to protect myself has only made my pain deeper and last longer than it really needed to…and that all changed this past weekend.

Every year, since my first year of marriage, I have attended a ladies retreat with my church friends.  I’ll never forget the first year: strapped for cash, ladies whom I hardly knew offered to pay my way, offered to bless me.  I was too proud to accept their kindness though, and I ended up scrounging up the money to go.  I was so blessed by the experience.  I don’t even remember who the speaker was or what she spoke about, but I do remember going back to my cabin in tears and those same sweet ladies ministering to a very scared newlywed.  I just love these ladies.   I can’t speak enough about how having them in my life has changed me, blessed me…they’ve discipled me.

This year is my thirteenth year going to Retreat.  Every year I come planning to be renewed and loved on by my Heavenly Father, and every year He shows up.  I prayed as I entered beautiful Rock Springs that He would show up again this year.   I prayed that I would be His vessel if others needed help.  I prayed that I would be renewed.  It’s been such a hard year, and I needed to retreat.  I immediately felt the presence of the Holy Spirit speaking to my soul…I felt Him whispering a love song to me. I settled into my rest and was full of Joy to be at a place that has been a spiritual renewal for me for so long…and then, my sin nature reared its ugly head.

When I arrived at our cabin, I discovered all of the beds were already taken.  Frustrated, I went from room to room trying to find a spot for me and my best friend, who wasn’t able to arrive until later in the evening.  My frustration must have been pretty evident because one of the ladies from our group came to my rescue and helped me make up a rollaway bed in the living room next to a pull-out couch.  The thoughts rolling through my brain weren’t nice and are not worth repeating.  I’m working four jobs to make ends meet right now, and I was so aggravated that the fee I’d had to save, scrimp, and go without meals for didn’t even get me a bed.  I’m just glad I kept my cool.  I texted my friend, “I’m grumpy about [not having a bed], so it’s your job to make me thankful I’m here…K!”  I was trying to make light of the situation.  Her response, “We can deal!  Guess that means you will have to stay up with me in the main room till everyone goes to sleep.  LOL!”  I’m so glad I have a friend who understands me.  She knew I needed her to not empathize but to tell me to grow up.  It’s a real blessing to have a friend like that.

I wish this was the end of my grumpiness, but it wasn’t.  When I arrived at the dining hall, I discovered that one of the women who had treated me so terribly at my last job was at Retreat as well.  There are four ladies that I worked with who sinned terribly against me, and one of them was here!  At my retreat!  At the retreat I’d faithfully attended every year of my marriage.   She was like the evil sidekick to my arch nemesis, and she was here!  I felt my back tighten, my shoulders hunch, and the scales around my pain shift into protective layers.

I left the dining hall hardly speaking.  I probably would have been muttering had I spoken at all.  But no one asked me to, thankfully, and I quietly found my seat.  The praise team entered and I obligingly stood.  I was grumbling in my spirit to God.  This is retreat!  I’m supposed to be getting my spiritual tank filled.  “God, I can’t focus on you when she’s here.  My back is going to go out on that stinking rollaway too!  I shouldn’t have come!  She’s probably watching me right now, waiting for me to look like an idiot praising you!  She’s probably watching to see when I cry and when I don’t.  She wants to see me hurt.  She’s evil!  God why is she here!  This is so unfair!”  Then, the words I’d been mechanically singing broke through my tantrum.

“This is my prayer in the fire,

in weakness or trial or pain,

there is a faith proved of more worth than gold,

so refine me Lord through the flames.”

And the Chorus,

“I will bring praise,

I will bring praise,

no weapon formed against me shall remain…”

God spoke to my hurt.  “Child, I know you are hurt.  I am angry you are in pain.  My pain is greater than yours because not only were you hurt, but, those who injured you did it out of their own pain.”  And then, “You are here because I need to strip you of your scales.   You have to heal if you are to complete the tasks I have for you.  I can heal you, but you have to let me tear the scales from your wounds.”  I was sobbing before our speaker even entered the stage.  God impressed upon me the image of Eustace Scrubb in C.S. Lewis’ The Dawn Treader.  Where he’d been turned into a dragon and Aslan had to tear the scales from his body in order for him to be restored.  It was quite an image.  I prayed, “Lord, if this is what I must do, I have faith that You will do what I need.”

Since the time that I decided to leave my last job, I felt like I had to prove that I was right.  God has told me I was, but I felt that I needed the world to know it too.  He taught me so much this weekend.  It was a divine appointment. I’ve been frustrated because my husband, who has been amazingly supportive of me, hasn’t continued to let me vent to him about my hurt.  He has asked me to forgive them…but whenever I tried, I started going down a laundry list of all the sins they’d committed against me and my anger and bitterness would come up and I would quit praying for them and start complaining about them.  I have been trying to practice the principle of forgiving a sin 70 X 7 times, but I’m failing.  God showed me that I didn’t have to win.  I needed to be broken.  I can’t change them.  They have their own crosses, crosses of their own making to bear, and it’s not my job to fix them, or to make them pay.  I prayed that He erase the laundry list of sins they’ve committed against me from my head.  Little by little, God tore each scale away this weekend.  He stripped me bare of my bitterness and anger.

So much more happened this weekend than I can fit into this blog.   First of all, my back didn’t go out on the rollaway, and we even found a bed for my dearest friend.  She also continued to not let me wallow in my frustrations and proved, yet again, why she is my confidant.  Best of all, the messages the speaker, Lynda Randle, gave spoke right into my pain.  She recently went through loss and pain, and she shared from that.  Sunday’s final message was on healing broken relationships…talk about a God thing.

I didn’t go to Retreat planning to have my scales ripped from my spirit.  I went planning to be renewed.  But God knew best.  He knew that while at Retreat He could stop my retreat from Him.  As the last verse of that precious praise song went, “This is my prayer in the harvest, when favor and providence flow, I know I’m filled to be emptied again, The seed I’ve received I will sow.”  Thank you Lord for giving me fresh seeds to sow this weekend.  I’m now ready to accept the blessings you so graciously want to bestow upon me.  I’m empty Lord, fill me up.

Staying Alert in Christ,

Megan

Here are some photos of our beautiful Retreat.