Our Inspired Journey

First of all, just being away from everything familiar for a few days was a good thing.  A very good thing.  Yes, I love my family and every single child God has given me along the way...but you already know that.  So instead of telling you how awkward it felt to climb in the car with my friend Mandy and all our luggage, sound equipment and guitars instead of my husband, four kids and all the stuff we normally haul with us for a weekend away, I'll just say...It felt WEIRD!  It was weird to leave them behind with a BUSY weekend schedule to hold to.  Of all weekends, I left John with three baseball games, and a concert to navigate through while I was away soaking in hot springs with my friends. SO weird.  It's not like me.  Really...I promise it's not.  :)

Any other year, I would've respectfully declined the invitation to retreat.  Life is just FULL with our little ones in tow and John and I love our weekends.  To give one up almost seems impossible these days.  But when my friend Gina, asked me if I'd lead worship for the retreat, I knew somewhere deep down, I had to go.  This was deeper than schedules.  I felt God calling me to say, "YES."

And so, as I try to be in the habit of doing, I followed the lead I felt in my heart and said YES back.

Mandy and I practiced and planned, and were excited and honored to lead our group of 40 women as we retreated to hear from Him for the weekend, away from our "normal" and into whatever He had in mind.

We went there with a "plan" and the Lord respectfully blew our plan out of the water and spoke gentle, loving, complete transformation directly to every heart that said "YES" when He asked them to come.

The first night I had to take a deep breath, and honestly had the hardest time shaking off how worked up I was just GETTING there.  Like I said, I was leaving John with a doozy of a weekend with the kids to try and navigate, so Friday morning before I left, I was ran around like a crazy person trying to do all our weekend chores in a few hours just to leave him with less "to do" while I was gone.

At one point, (I'm not sure how it happened but I think Rylee was blamed for this one...) I walked into the girls' room and there were clothes strewn about from one wall clear to the other wall.  Clothes that we had all worked for a LONG time to fold, were no longer in nice neat little piles ready to be put away.  There was no place to walk, no clear place to even start in on the mess before me.

*Deep breath*

My anxiety rose as I glanced down at my watch and I saw John was supposed to get home any minute...I really wanted him to feel refreshed, walking into a clean house as I gracefully walked out with my bags in hand for the weekend away.  Yikes!  This was NOT the picture I had in mind to hand him when he walked in.

My frustration got the best of me as I started marching through the house ordering everyone around me (all under the age of 7) to hurry and CLEAN up!  It was not pretty.  I was embarrassed.  My plan to "bless" I started realizing was actually a plan to "impress."  I wanted to show him I could hand him the kind of house I like to be given when I'm away...that perfection is possible.  Well, it's not and I didn't.  There was no perfect house given to anyone that day.  In fact we were all a little ragged from trying.

And then, like he always does, my husband walked through the door and instead of balking at my lack of organization or my inability to "get my act together" with the laundry that morning, he gracefully walked into the messiest part of the house (the place I felt the most shame) sat right down in the middle of it all and began folding clothes.

Tears streaming down my face, I apologized over and over telling him about all of my good intentions.  How I wanted him to have less to do when I was away,
how I wanted to make it easy for him to let me go.

He took my face in his hands, and without an ounce of judgement or rebuke he spoke the words he's spoken over me many times before over the past 11 years...