Girls Retreat!

Just a few words about the Girls Retreat this past weekend....WOW! I think that is the correct word to sum it up. We ended up having 30 girls and they had an absolutely wonderful time. The work that it involved I way underestimated and thier was no elevator on the wing at church that we were set up....I am not sure how many times I trucked up and down the stairs from the kitchen to set up meals, but I do know that not a bone in my body wasn't truly aching by the end on Saturday. I was so relieved that it was over. I wish that I could have set in on more of the actual sessions that the girls went to because many of them told me just how wonderful they were and how God had really spoken to them. I did get to go to the Life on Life Session on Saturday for Youth Workers and Moms of Teen Age Girls and it was a wonderful blessing. The speaker was a lady from Tulsa who spoke on leaving a legacy with your children. She spoke so candidly and transparently about her daughter's death just this past February and how she was so thankful that even though she had forgotten to put on her seatbelt in her car the day of the accident she had fastened her spiritual seatbelt and had a wonderful loving relationship with her father in heaven. It was so sad for me to imagine....and all the pregnancy hormones did not help much in keeping my emotions under control as she began to tell the testimony of her daughter. She spoke about how God had stregthened her, comforted her and given her a new peace and mission through it all. She was so overwelmed with thankfulness to know that she had left her daughter a wonderful legacy of a love relationship with Jesus and that she was able to see even more clearly after her death in her journals. What a wonderful gift for her as a mother that her daughter left in her most intimate journals of her faith. It was truly such a wonderful time and I couldn't help but be so thankful that she allowed God to used her, even in sharing with us that day, in such a mighty way. Later I shared that with Courtney and she told me that when she had first approached Alicia to speak, she told her that she couldn't possibly..she just wasn't a speaker..she couldn't speak in front of groups of people.....isn't it amazing when we get out of the way, obey and let God use us in such a mighty way to glorify Him...even when we think that we can't possibly do what He has called us to do? Truly amazing....