Middle School Retreat!

When I was asked to help out with the middle school girls Sunday school class Brandon mentioned that there was a retreat at the end of September. God has gifted me with just enough brave servanthood that I remembered and volunteered to go :-)(I of course first verified that there would be indoor plumbing first)

After being in a van with 9 pre-teen girls for about 5 minutes I had all these memories of my mom saying 'you are all just so loud' 'shhhh, shhh, shhhh' :-) I kind of loved it:-)

I've never been on a retreat before and several of the girls hadn't either, so we got to experience it together. It was a beautiful place, and when we were given free time I followed some of the girls to the man-made creek-waterfall. They took off their shoes and let their feet sit in the water. They walk around a little. They 'fell' a little. Okay - so they sort of swam. And I thought it was the most blessed thing to watch them play and laugh!! 6th-7th grade is just a tricky place where you transition to teen-hood. I loved watching them get to be children.

Turns out there were guidelines at the next freetime about no swimming in the pond. Oops :-)

I did get thrown up on. Wrong stall at the wrong time. But thankfully I had an extra pair of pants. And I did forget a blanket. So I rolled myself up in my sheets and covered myself with a sweater.

I got to be a station leader and introduce the kiddos to 1 Corinthians 6:20: you were bought at a price - honor God with your body. I was so glad to get the opportunity to share that this is a scripture about appreciating ourselves as God's creation, and not a scripture about whether you can or can't dye your hair or get a tatoo. I hope some seeds of grace were planted in place of a mindset towards rules. And it's such a valuable lesson for little girls and boys to realize that criticizing our appearance is not God honoring.

I really liked getting to know the precious daughters of some of the women I admire in my Bible studies. But what I like the best about the whole experience was the confidence I had in the fact that that weekend I was where God wanted me to be. I prayed for opportunities to minister - to be sent. I didn't know what that would look like, and I don't know that I'll see results from it. But I wasn't worried about Madalyn and I wasn't nervous about what to say or do. It was just good.

So yay :-)