Hot tub...lake...hot tub

I've had a crazy week since last time...and where to begin?

I went away this past weekend for a christian college age retreat to beautiful sunny New York...or Pennsylvania (I have no clue where it is located) to relax and kickback, maybe meet a nice guy, make some new friends, make new memories with old, and maybe just maybe see God.

Well most of them happened...unfortunately it wasn't sunny until the last day and relaxing when everyone is hyped up on Jesus, chocolate and the free coffee in the dining hall? Not likely, just as unlikely it was for me to meet a guy...which I didn't. I did get to make new friends and lots of new memories...like my one friend "turkeying" the speaker and another taking a kiss right in the eye...lol that's going to live on for a long time yet. Another was the group hot tubbing experience...where almost all (there were twelve) of us got into the hot tub at 10:30pm and after about 15 min ran down to the lake edge and proceed to submerge ourselves for...depending on our endurance and ability to feel cold...30 sec to 5 min, and then proceed back to sultry heat of the hot tub.

WARNING...this is not for the faint of heart, the needles prickling under your skin and the burn of warmth that travels the length of your body as you ease back into the heat is unbelievable and exhilarating at the same time, not to mention the 45 second run back to the tub from the lake edge with the wind whipping and cutting while you question in the back of your mind...why the heck did I do this? Peer pressure? I mean parents have prepared you for this moment from the beginning asking if everyone jumped off a bridge would you? And like a good little girl I would say no but now I know...I would...sometimes the mind is a crazy place...lol

And as to the last, that I would maybe meet God...I did. I felt His presence like a snake feels the heat from the sun as it lays on a rock, I felt it like a hug from a friend I hadn't seen in a while...and it was BEAUTIFUL.

Now if anyone knows christian retreats there is always a theme and this one was GOD'S GRACE. The wonder of God at work in each person's life, His help through the valleys and up the mountains that we face daily to survive this life. There were three things though that will stick with me for a long time and it is the blessings offered after each session...

The first was a blessing of DISORIENTATION-no longer do I make plans or stress about that next step, instead I rest in the fact God has plans for me, beautiful and hope-filled and perfect. The example that I think of is Peter, that poor guy who didn't know what he did when he said yes to Jesus's statement of "follow me". I love Peter how he was just an ordinary fisherman one minute and a disciple of Christ the next...with no fishing boat or nets in his future at all. I can only imagine Peter that first night after walking away from the job...the life he knew into the relative unknown, following this man people called the Christ. Would he have laid there that first night thinking of everything he gave up, thinking what have I done? where are we going? what do I even know about this guy? Wrestling, always wrestling...it seems Peter did that a lot but in the end he was entrusted with a call on his life that even now affects the contemporary body of Christ. God's disorientation in Peter's life was, in a word I think, gracious. Who knows what sort of empty life Peter would have striven for under the Law never attaining salvation, salvation that he learned firsthand only comes from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Whew...heavy stuff -now you know a little of why I am not feeling relaxed but on the edge processing the information received and trying to breathe and learn through it. And this was only one blessing...I'll be back and share the other two when I finally process them. Until then

-Bookbabe-