Maranatha Women's Retreat 2021

 

The Shove

On the drive home from speaking at Maranatha camp’s marriage retreat, Jon asked if I was planning on going to the women’s retreat as well.  I listed off a few pros and cons and concluded that I wasn’t sure.  “I think you should go.”  His candor surprised me.  He doesn’t often vocalize his opinions without being prodded.  Two weeks later, I returned to camp.  

Friday (Day 1)

I’m not sure what it is about Maranatha - the beauty of the lake, the break from daily responsibilities, the spotty cell service, the opportunity to break out of your comfort zone, the connection with other believers, or the army of prayer warriors who support the ministry - but God always works through it.

Early in the women’s retreat, God first nudged me with an ordinary memory.  I know a 5-year-old who, like most kids her age, enjoys having downtime with her iPad.  But did you know iPads have side effects?  Hearing loss is one (I’m sure it’s documented somewhere).  Attempts to talk to this sociable girl during iPad time are met with silence or zombie-like mumbling.  Later, she will not remember any response she gave, and if you tried to tell her something important, she will accuse you: “You never told me that!” 

As the memory reel crossed my mind,  I knew what God was showing me.  I do the same to Him.  I feel sometimes like He is silent or that He isn’t communicating what I think He should.  The problem isn’t God’s voice.  The problem is that I get so fixated on whatever is in front of me that I’m not listening for His voice.  And I miss it.  He isn’t going to shout - I have to be alert and ready to hear.  

With my heart primed, God started the deeper work.  Friday evening ended with a speaker whose message pressed into some old marriage wounds (which had already been scuffed during the marriage retreat).  Healing from that part of our story has been (and continues to be) a long process.  God is still untangling the mess in my heart.  But just like my junior high self swatted away the hands of the surgeon who tried to remove my appendectomy bandages, I shoved God’s healing hands to the side that night.  Healing hurts.  And it’s scary.  I wasn’t sure I was ready for another phase of it.

 

Saturday (Day 2)

The sunny morning on Saturday promised a warm, beautiful day and brought my guard down.  I knew from years of camps, conferences, and retreats that the last evening session is usually the heaviest, so I expected more of a “salad” morning (in the thick of the marriage struggles I just mentioned, I labeled movies and tv shows as “salad” or “steak.”  My heart couldn’t handle the complicated or emotional steak shows at the time, so we watched a lot of Phineas and Ferb).  I haven’t even seen the show This Is Us, but I can tell you that’s what kind of morning it ended up being.

Morning Session

The speaker began in Psalm 13, which piqued my attention and caution.  When she moved to 1 Samuel 1, I felt my throat and chest tighten, and my walls shot back up.  Hannah.  Breath caught and eyes frozen, I listened as the speaker shared her own story of infertility that nearly mirrored my own.  Then, the room spun as she talked about her failed adoption match.  Finally, she described the picture text she received from their case worker of a baby boy that said “I can’t wait to meet my mommy and daddy!”  I couldn’t hold myself together anymore.  

Thankfully, I didn’t have to.  Jen (whose son and daughter-in-law are also waiting for an adoption match) grabbed my hand and Polly (an adoptive mom herself) handed me a Kleenex.  Shaking and crying (like I am now as I write this), I made it through the rest of the story because of the specific women God chose to seat on my right and my left. Once we were dismissed, Rhonda crossed the room to give me a hug and let me know she was praying, and then I darted out of the building and toward the lake.  Mind spinning and heart racing, I didn’t look back as I kept putting one foot in front of the other until I reached my favorite spot to be alone at camp.  

 

Processing

For an hour, I cried, I talked to God, I stared at the water in front of me and the tree above me, I journaled, and I listened to the songs God brought to mind (the main one being “Worn” by Tenth Avenue North).  The adoption portion of our wait hadn’t been hard yet.  The change of direction from medical intervention had been a breath of fresh air, and excitement ruled the earliest months. We had already waited six years - what was one or two more?  

But March arrived. March has gotten harder each year because of my birthday. Age is not a friend of infertility, and in the days prior to this retreat, I had been struggling more with the possibility of having a long adoption wait on top of what we’ve already endured. March marks sixth months since we contracted with Lifetime and four months since we went active. Now, we are almost done with the adoption work, and our main job is to remain ready and to wait.  I understand that God has a specific baby that He wants to place into our family, and I know that He has a specific birth mom he wants us to be connected with.  I know there is no way to predict or force that connection. But losing the distraction of being able to “work” on our adoption has made it more difficult to stay positive when I am forced to slow down (like at the retreat). Many days I am fine - happy, even.  Saturday was not one of those days.  But God held me and helped me wrestle through my longing.    

After lunch, I spent a couple more hours alone with God and then rejoined the other women for Josi’s art workshop and Polly’s Refit workout.  

 

Josi’s Art Workshop

Josi gave us 5 questions to ask God, and she provided music as we reflected:

(1) What does my heart look like?  What do You want to do with that?

(2) How do You want me to think of You?

(3) Will You give me a picture, verse, song, or word to show me what You think of me?

(4) Do You enjoy spending time with me?

(5) Is there anything You want to show me today?  

After spending some time in prayer, we gradually retrieved our various art supplies and started to create. Here are the explanations behind the journal page I put together:

My Heart

As I thought about my heart, I saw a few wounds that still feel fairly fresh. Others are partially healed, but they still break open easily.  I also saw that some of my wounds are scarred over, but they still occasionally itch or ache - like my deepest surgery scar.  

Safe

I was reminded that my heart is always safe with Jesus because of who He is.  No circumstance can ever change that truth.  

Dark Gray Phrases

The dark gray phrases in my picture depict what I was saying to God.  Most of these are lyrics from the song “Worn” by Tenth Avenue North.  I knew I was missing a key lyric from the chorus, but I couldn’t get internet in the building we were in to look it up, so I made the picture without it.  Later, I had enough service as I was walking to our cabin to find the missing lyric: “That You can mend a heart that’s frail and torn.”  How crazy is that?  I’m pretty sure I forgot the lyric so that God could emphasize the truth of it to me that much more.  

Light Gray Phrases

The light gray phrases are what God had been saying to me in various ways.  Here are a few examples:

“I am kindness without manipulation” came from an Instagram post I had seen from @stephaniehcochrane days before the retreat.  

At one point during the retreat, I was looking through the papers shoved in the front of my Bible and found an old note from some of our first youth group girls.  On the back, I had written notes from a sermon: “If you try to shepherd without first sitting with the Savior, one way or another your sheep will end up with scars” and “Have the attitude of a victor, not a victim.”  

 

Polly’s Refit Workout

The Refit workout helped calm my emotions and clear my mind for the rest of the evening. Moving your body does wonders for your inner well-being. Also, Polly is the best! 

 

Evening Session

Saturday night’s speaker had us laughing, cringing, and sympathizing with her as she described the year she spent as a missionary teacher in Brazil.  She was solid in the way she taught Scripture, and her encouragement was to follow the basic principles of trusting and obeying God.  Her message was simple, and it served as a great landing spot after the wrestling I had experienced through the previous messages.  The path ahead was clear once again.  The next right step is always to trust God and to obey what He asks me to do. I felt His peace rest on my heart. 

 

Sunday (Day3)

Sunday morning was a time of wrap-up and reflection.  After the message, we were encouraged to visit with the ladies around us about what God had been teaching us.  For me, this eventually led to a sweet time of connection, evaluation, and prayer with Tanya and Natalie (two other ministry wives).  We are all in different seasons of life, but we were able to understand and relate to each other so well.  We cried together, encouraged each other, and helped each other identify and voice what was going on in our hearts.  

            I have no doubt that women’s retreat is exactly where God wanted me to be last weekend.  He spoke to me through my husband to urge me to go.  He spoke to me through the speakers to make me face some of the things I’d been pushing down with busyness.  He brought the women He knew I’d need and who would need me.  He sat with me by the lake.  And He will “never, never, never, never, never” leave me.  He is so good.

Follow our adoption journey: Facebook Group

Visit our adoption website: Jonathan & Sharayah Adopt

If you are thinking about choosing adoption for your child 

and would like to learn more about us, 

please call or text Lifetime at 1-800-923-6784!

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Flourish Women's Retreat 2019

         

          The 2019 Flourish Women’s Retreat at Maranatha Bible Camp & Retreat Center ended up falling right in the middle of the transition from my office job back to babysitting. I was even busier than normal and in desperate need of some down-time, though I didn’t necessarily want it. I’m realizing that for a long time I’ve used busyness as a way to cope with (or maybe numb out?) some of the painful things in life. Slowing down gives me too much time to think and to feel, but God knows I need it. I played piano for the worship team with our church intern and her mom at the retreat, so the weekend wasn’t entirely void of responsibility, but I think God was using it as a gradual baby step of slowing me down before the complete pause that will come with my big surgery next month. Maybe tapping on the breaks a little bit now will help prevent the emotional whiplash I experienced with my last surgery. Anyway, I went into the weekend both expectant of rejuvenation but also apprehensive of the potential for bursting floodgates of repressed emotion.

          After the Friday afternoon worship practice, the conference registration brought with it several familiar faces  from different places and stages of my life. They came from Sterling Berean – the church I grew up in, Mitchell Berean – the church we attended when we lived in Scottsbluff, and of course The Crossing – our church family in Gothenburg. A few other pastor’s wives I know also attended, even though they had already been at Maranatha at least one, if not two, other weekends in February. I’m not at all a social butterfly, but throughout the weekend I tried to be intentional about visiting with different people, and I enjoyed getting to meet some new people as well. I had a hotel-style room to myself, which was awesome when I needed some time to retreat, process, and be alone.

          The speaker, Robyn Dykstra, was phenomenal. She was incredibly engaging and very obviously grounded in the Word of God. Her story-telling and interactive style had us all on the edge of our seats – crying, then laughing, then nodding in mutual understanding, and back again. In the first session, she shared her own incredible story while also emphasizing the promises of God (if you are curious about her story, check out her book, The Widow Wore Pink: A True Story of Life After Loss and the Transforming Power of a Loving God). On Saturday, she delved into the topics of prayer and learning to recognize our worth according to Christ so that we can then be authentically and freely involved in Christian community. On Sunday morning, she wrapped up with the topic of using our relationship with God to impact others, particularly by listening to and obeying the prompts of the Holy Spirit. This last session was probably the most challenging for me. I have a lot of the Bible knowledge, and I’ve known Jesus for a long time, but I still ignore or outright say no to the nudging of the Holy Spirit far more often than I’d like to admit.

          Each teaching session was accompanied by four songs: three before the teaching and one afterwards. Ellie (our intern) did an excellent job choosing set lists and leading the time of worship through music. It was her first time leading worship in a setting like that (she has led at our church for Sunday mornings several times throughout her internship). She was sensitive to the needs of the moment; for example, she dropped one song to instead sing “Who You Say I Am” after the session that focused on our worth and position in Christ. Ellie, her mom, and I meshed well together as a team, and it was fun getting to lead together. It was an honor to be a part of providing the music to help the women there focus on who God is and on the truth of His Word.

          The weekend provided a chance to escape the clutter, distraction, and weight of daily living while also being immersed in God’s Word and God’s people. While we did have the scheduled session times, we were also given a lot of flexibility and freedom to do what we needed to do to “get away, quiet down, and hear God speak” (Maranatha’s motto). We had a time specifically set aside to go be alone with God and process the teaching we had been hearing. Saturday afternoon was entirely discretionary, though they offered an “Afternoon of Adventure” so that there was little chance of ever getting bored unless you just wanted to be bored. The “Afternoon of Adventure” consisted of various activities offered each hour that included everything from rock wall climbing and clay shooting to Bible journaling and painting to hair and makeup demonstrations and bath bomb making. Maranatha always offers plenty to do while allowing attendees the freedom to skip and take a nap or do something entirely on their own if needed. We also had a movie night, a banquet, and the surprise of having little gifts waiting on our tables for each session (including a beautiful journal that was given the first night).

          The food was wonderful (and not just because I didn’t have to cook it or wash the dishes)! We had high quality, hearty breakfasts, soups, salads, sandwiches, and sides. We also had beef stroganoff for one meal. The banquet on Saturday night started off with spinach puffs and stuffed mushrooms for appetizers along with three choices of mocktails. Then we moved along to some kind of glorious caprese-type chicken with bacon-wrapped asparagus, pasta, and salad. To top it all off, we finished with the option of a parfait-style cherry cheesecake or a parfait-style smores dessert. Of course, the coffee shop was open several times throughout the weekend as well.

          When all was said and done, I came away re-charged (even though I stayed up too late during the retreat) and ready to dive into youth group on Sunday night (which is certainly not always the case on Sunday nights). I fell apart emotionally a couple times over the weekend as I continued to wrestle with God on some different things, and I didn’t get that emotional “camp high” that sometimes occurs (which isn’t the goal anyway). However, I came away reminded of who God is and who I am, of the support system I have had through the different phases of life thus far, and of my purpose and calling that can only be carried out by listening to the Holy Spirit when He tugs at my heart. Maranatha has been such a blessing to me ever since my first experience there at AWANA camp in fifth grade. There is no doubt in my mind that God uses it to shape people and bring about His purposes in their lives. If you ever get the chance to go to a retreat there, take it!

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There's No Place Like Camp

For two weeks this summer, I was immersed in a sea of braided hair, dirty feet, sunburned faces, and bracelet-adorned wrists and ankles.  Everywhere I looked, I could see water bottles, hammocks, ukuleles, guitars, and flashlights.  The distinct aromas of campfire smoke, porta potties, sunscreen, bug spray, and sweat were my constant company.  My ears heard laughter, hoarse voices, dad jokes, unique nicknames, competitive chants and cheers, spontaneous singing, passionate Bible teaching, and powerful testimonies.  I both enjoyed the beauty of God's creation and sought out higher ground to avoid the less savory of God's  creatures (e.g., mice, black widows, ticks, snakes, tarantulas, tarantula hawks, and ungodly sized beetles).  There's no place like camp. 

Maranatha Bible Camp and Grace Haven Bible Camp are two very different camps; yet, they both strive to create an environment where campers can get away from all the junk of life and slow down long enough to hear God speak.  At Maranatha, we had the privilege of leading a group of students from Mitchell Berean for senior high week.  This involved leading small group discussions, leading "Ecc Time" for our church group, and overall supervision responsibilities for our group.  Jon also taught about the fruit of the Spirit during the "Grow Group" sessions, which included students from other churches.  For Grace Haven, Jon prepared 10 lessons on the attributes of God as the primary speaker.  I tagged along and enjoyed camp without having a specific role.  I was also able to catch up with a few former campers whom I had counseled at Grace Haven back in 2013, which was super cool and encouraging! 

As stretching as camps can be, they are some of my absolute favorite places.  Here are a few reasons why:

1) Camp is fun!  Laughter, play, and songs are commonplace.

2) Fears are faced, and courage is gained. 

3) Opportunities for encouragement and service abound. 

4) New relationships are formed, and old ones are strengthened.

5) The unity and deep fellowship of believers is experienced in a profound and unique way.

6) Great conversations take place.

7) Biblical truths are grasped for the first time.

8) Wounds begin to heal.

9) The fact that God is indeed working becomes very evident.

10) Hearts and lives are changed. 

            Words seem so insufficient to describe what camp is for many people: what it has been for me in my own spiritual walk.  I am so thankful for the opportunities that we had this summer to take part in a ministry that is so near to my heart!