Restored: Girls' Retreat

As the girls and I sat in the living room and sang, "Oh How He Loves Us," I felt overwhelming joy to see this vision become a reality: All these girls, 6th-12th grade, gathered together in one room worshiping our Creator and learning alongside each other the truth of our identity in Christ.


Arise and Go

"Restored," the much-prayed-about theme of the Crossfire Girls' Retreat kicked off with our visionary and leader, Esther Brunat, speaking on Micah 2:10: "Arise and go, for this is no place to rest, because of uncleanness that destroys with a grievous destruction." Esther highlighted God's commandment to "Arise and go." She explained how there is a physical, mental, emotional or spiritual place in all of us where we don't want to be, that is unclean or leads to destruction. She shared that our thought-life, especially as women, is where our battles are fought and won. We have maybe a 5-second window for when thoughts enter our mind. We can either let the unhelpful/destructive thought (ie: of comparison, or lust or jealousy) capture us and lead us away into sin, or we can take that thought captive to Christ and ask Him to fill us with His truth.

Esther continued to reveal truth to us through God's Word:
In Haggai, God promised that the "latter will be greater than the former,":

"The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,' says the LORD Almighty. 'And in this place I will grant peace,' declares the LORD Almighty." Haggai 2:9

We are not meant to rest or make our home in these "former" places, but God wants to deliver us. God promises to replace fear with love, anxiety with peace, and insecurity with assurance.

After this talk, each girl had a thirty-minute "God-time," where she found somewhere on the premises to spend time talking one-on-one with Jesus honestly about this topic. For each girl, this served as a special and powerful time, as the Lord revealed important, life-changing truths and next steps toward that transformation God desired.


R & R

Interspersed between these more serious sessions of spiritual self-examination and growth were times of relaxing in the pool, jumping on the trampoline, playing soccer/basketball, or taking a stroll on the beach. We were incredibly grateful for the generosity of the family in the church who

lent us the beach house and acted as our hosts for the weekend. I couldn't imagine a more ideal setting to contemplate God's restoration and beauty.

Best Yes
In the afternoons, we split up into "Break-Out Sessions," where different leaders had the chance to speak from their heart and life experience to smaller groups of girls. The topics covered everything from: "The Father's Heart," to "Courage," "Comparison," and "Self-Worth."


I had it on my heart to share about a book I read recently, called The Best Yes, by Lisa Terkeurst. The book is about how to make Godly decisions and make time to slow down to listen to Him to find the best decisions for our lives. The ironic thing about my talk though was I almost completely missed my session! Due to a mix up in the schedule, I started my session late, and all the girls had already gone to other break-out sessions. I was so discouraged! Here, I wanted to share about these important, life-changing truths, and there was no one to share it with.

Fortunately,  a small group of leaders (my friends) hung around and came to my shortened session. I was appreciative to them for coming, and we actually had a good discussion around the topic of making big life decisions. One student arrived about half-way through, as she had walked up from the beach in the rain, and had almost missed the session as well.

I shared what God had taught me through the author's words and prayed that somehow God would use this. In my heart of hearts, I prayed that maybe I'd get another opportunity to share with the rest of the girls.

Afterwards we shared a community-style lunch and, later, split into small groups that were just assigned for this retreat weekend. I was relieved to learn that the girls in my group were all native English speakers, because this meant I could be more open with them. They could share from their heart in their heart language, and I would understand it fully. (Normally, my Crossfire freshman/sophomore girls small group is a combination of English and Spanish speakers, and my co-leader and I are constantly translating back and forth. It works, and I end up learning a lot from these girls.)

As I looked around at the girls in my small group (for just this weekend), I was excited to learn that these four girls were 8th-12th grade girls that I had had multiple chances beforehand to pour into, and ones that I thought specifically about when I was preparing to share the lessons in the Best Yes book. Now we got the opportunity to talk and be real with each other about decisions we were wrestling with, and I was impressed how the junior/senior girls shared about their experiences with decision making, in relation to college and summer jobs. Though I didn't deserve it, God had redeemed this time and given me another outlet in which to share!

Lies About God

That same night, after dinner, we all reunited downstairs for Lisa's talk. Lisa is a woman of God that I highly admire; she is incredibly sensitive to the work of the Holy Spirit and allows God to speak truths from His Word through her. Needless to say, I was already hyped up about all that God was doing that weekend, and sat on the edge of my seat, ready to take in whatever truths would be spoken that night.

As the sun set, and it got increasingly darker in the room, I heard whispers about how the generator was broken, and Lisa addressed these concerns by giving them to God and declaring His power over our circumstances. But the lights stayed off.

Despite having to hold her iPhone in one hand as a flashlight to read her notes, Lisa spoke boldly and had her mind set on the task at hand. The main point of her talk was the challenge to reflect upon what lies we were currently believing about God and ask God to get rid of these lies and fill our hearts with His Truth.

The Bucket
 
As the mom of four, she compared these lies to old, broken toys that she made her kids put in the "throw-away" bucket. She said we needed to put these lies in the bucket and throw them away, so that God could "renew our minds." (Romans 12:2), and transform us, often by fire (Job 28:5). We need only to recognize the Truth of who God is and what Jesus is offering us (everything). When we begin to know and declare these Truths, our relationship with God is restored, and we can enter into close communion with Him.

God is not like the over-tired parent who gets weary of hearing about or helping us with "petty" problems. The Truth is that it brings God great pleasure to work in us. Philippians 2:13 says: "For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him." 

The Lullaby

In fact in Zephaniah 3:17, it says:

"The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing."

Personally, when I read this verse, I like to think of God whistling happily as He chisels away at our lives, making us more and more into the image of Christ. Or maybe He's humming a comforting melody as He reaches down to pull us up out of the same hole we've fallen into time and time again. He gently instructs us about the better path and guides us to step boldly in the way He has prepared.

Lisa compared it to a father singing sweet lullabies over his baby, swelling with pride and bursting with love at the thought of this little one made in their image. The baby is soothed by the Father's singing. "You're beautiful. You're precious. You're mine."

The Light

Lisa closed her talk and gave an invitation for girls to come up and pray with different leaders around the room. During the invitation she said, "And you don't have to feel ashamed about coming up for prayer, because the lights are still out."

She was about to say something else, when there was a loud clicking noise, and the generator kicked in and light flooded the room.

Blinking in astonishment, I smiled and almost starting laughing in surprise at what the Lord had done. A mini-miracle! The lights were back!

My friend, Erica, elbowed me with a chuckle saying, "God has such a good sense of humor!"

I couldn't agree more. In the moment we were trying to hide, He turned on the lights: there would be no shame anymore. Jesus is the light. Darkness does not understand the light and cannot overcome it! This Light permeates every dusty crevice of our hearts, the parts we want to hide or cover up with lies, illuminating the truth and allowing us to clearly see the path ahead.

Afterwards

This tangible sign of God's intervention and answer to prayer really shifted the girls' perspective and remained the topic of discussion all that night and later on into the week. What was it again about lies we believed about God?: Is He Enough? Is He all Loving? Is He caring enough to be there in the details, the specifics, the mundane areas of our life, like the lights not working? Is He all powerful? Can we trust Him?

Continue to pray that these girls' lives would be restored, filled with the truth of knowing Christ as their personal Savior and what difference this makes in their lives. Pray that they would continually be seeking out the heart of Jesus and take time to spend time with Him daily and listen to Him and His reassuring song of love over them.

Verses for the Road