the retreat

I know.

Ya'll are just dying to hear me eat my words.

As I said earlier,

I'm glad I was forced to go went.

Bev Bradley is a great speaker.

She's funny,

she looks fabulous,

she loves Jesus,

knows her Bible,

and was pretty transparent.

Two things she said that I really need to remember are

"Conviction comes from God, and points me to Him;

condemnation comes from Satan, and points me towards myself."

and

"When we obey Jesus, people will be blessed.

When we are overextended

[taking on work that He doesn't have for us to do]

people around us will suffer."

I'd have to say that the biggest thing I went home with though,

was not something that Bev said,

but rather something I wrote down 

while we were just having a few minutes of silent prayer

after the last session Friday evening.

As a family,

for years we have prayed that we would 'grow in love'

or that we'd 'be more loving'.

What I wrote was

"We pray that God would help us to grow in love.

I think, what we need instead - what I need instead,

is to grow in the knowledge of His love."

I think Tyler tried to tell me this once,

but I didn't get it.

I suppose I was still trying to do things in my own power..

Until I really grasp

how wide and long and high and deep 

Christ's love is for me,

I can't really grow in love.

About a year or so ago,

I sorta quit believing that God loved me.

Me.

Yes, I still believed He was my Savior,

that He loved 'the world' and all,

but I was really struggling with the idea of Him loving 

me, personally.

I figured there must be a loophole somewhere.

(Being sick can do strange things to you - I see that now)

Sometimes in church

I couldn't even sing some of the songs;

they just felt like lies.

Two weeks ago on Sunday,

 we sang the song How He Loves Us

and I couldn't sing it.

Not because I didn't believe it,

but because I did.

Finally.

I usually read the Bible to see what I need to do,

how I need to live.

But I think that,

for awhile anyways,

I'm going to try to read with the mindset of 

increasing my knowledge of God - and His love for me

which, 

I think will naturally result in an increasing love for him

and others.

Bev says 1 Corinthians 13 is not an assignment;

it's an invitation.

So, yeah.

I'm kinda glad I went to the retreat.