On Thursday night, the staff for the weekend were challenged to journal on Sunday (after the weekend was done) the one thing they took away from the weekend. I told him to remind me on Sunday in the car ride home, but he forgot to! But, here I am, remembering now to write down the one thing I took away.
That is a difficult thing to do, as there are many things I can take away. Looking back, as I wrote in my journal during each teaching session, there were many new ideas that were brought to my attention over the weekend...but there is one thing that I can say I took away from this weekend.
As I blogged last week, I was nervous about a relationship that I was going to have to face this weekend. I came out of the weekend with a complete sense of peace as I began to understand how things work between the two of us now. It really became apparent to me (even though I have been learning this over the past 6-8 months) that I have no control over other people and their thoughts/actions/feelings. I have been trying to understand this particular person for the past 8 months, but they have not been letting me in, and it hurt me a lot as I was giving a lot of myself to try to get this person to give back. I realize now that I cannot make this person let me in, as they have clearly blocked me out, all I can do is care for them as a fellow believer in Christ and hope that we can remain acquaintances/friends and be able to enjoy each others company when we happen to work together at retreats such as this past weekend. I do care for this person and will always care for them and hope they will follow the Lord with all their heart in all that they do. There actually wasn't much awkwardness, and by the end of the weekend we were interacting with little hesitation. Some of us were also talking over the weekend about relationships, and how sometimes when you have a deep relationship with someone and then it ends, there needs to be a period of time where there is space between the two persons involved in order to get over and past the conflicts and issues at stake. I still wish I knew what this person learned from the mistakes made, but I have given it up to God to take control of, and have complete faith that this peace I now feel will help me to continue to move forward in my relationship with Christ.
What I learned and took away from this weekend was quite personal, as the speaker didn't even talk about that this weekend, but that's what I learned (and know I needed to learn). My, how God works in mysterious ways! However, I did learn a lot from the speaker, Kevin Loten. The worship was also amazing, and the words sung were so true to what I have been feeling as of lately and learning as well.
This is fairly vague, sorry. I will continue to post as things potentially come up in my head, but I head out again on Thursday evening for the weekend, so you might have to wait. We'll see what else happens this week.
Prayer Request: My uncle went for a heart transplant on Friday night. I waited in anticipation all weekend for updates, and he made it through the 12 hour procedure, the heart is beating, he is in stable condition, although his kidney's are having issues (they worked on those today), and he has yet to wake up from the procedure yet.
Praise Item: I have raised $500 already for my missions trip to the Czech Republic, and have a sponsor prepared to pay whatever I need to make up by the deadline of the money needing to be raised.
Pictures of the Weekend:
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