Ladies' Retreat

Hearing God Speak was the theme of our ladies' retreat. What an amazing weekend! Our church is blessed to have several women who are gifted teachers/presenters. They are often asked to speak at other churches and events, so it's a blessing when we get to sit at their feet and learn. Marilyn was our teacher this weekend...and she's amazing! I learned so much about the different ways that God speaks to us.

I would love to regurgitate all the info that she gave us, but that would take 2 days! I asked some friends to hold me accountable to spending time listening to God each morning before I blog...so I don't have much time this morning before the boys wake up! (Email me if you're interested and I'll give you a copy of my notes.) We all loved spending time together this weekend, but I think everyone would agree that the best parts of the weekend were the sessions with Marilyn.

Since I didn't take many pictures of the sessions, here are pictures of some of the fun we had!

As soon as the first session was over on Friday night the announcement was made that there were snacks over on one of the tables. Most of the ladies just sat around and kept talking. Not us! We headed straight for the cream cheese cupcakes! Yummmmm! (Anna, Shelly, Amber, & Angela)

We finally made it back to our room around 11 pm. {Side note: We stayed at The Lodge of Granbury and it was crazy big! There were 4 girls in our "room" which was actually a 2 story condo. The first floor had 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, a full kitchen, and a living room with a balcony overlooking Lake Granbury. The 2nd floor had a loft bedroom, a bathroom, and 2 HUGE closets. There were closets everywhere in our condo...and I mean BIG closets! Ones large enough to make them a bedroom!} When we made it back to our room Robyn realized that she had forgotten her toothbrush. So we set out to find a Wal-Mart. THIRTY minutes later we found the Wal-Mart that was 5 minutes from the lodge. For some reason Shelly's Iphone had a little trouble getting us there. The GPS kept taking us to various gas stations and telling us that we had arrived at Wal-Mart.

Of course, you can't to go Wal-Mart for just a toothbrush (especially when it was so hard to find), but I doubt anyone would be able to guess the seemingly random item Anna purchased....

That's right, a disco ball! She said she'd been looking at them for Autumn's room and she was so excited to find one in the store (she hadn't found one in any store back home). You better believe we plugged that thing in when we got back to the lodge and had a little dance party. It was actually really cool!

Saturday morning we spent more time eating up every word that Marilyn said...then we headed out to the Granbury square to get some eats for our bellies. A bunch of us ended up at a little cafe (don't remember the name of it...and don't really care to either!) on the square. There was one waitress for the entire dining room! We had a great time visiting...but we all agreed to never go there with kids! I think it took us 2 hours to eat sandwiches!

Marilyn, Amy, Jenny, Miss Carrie (one of Brody's pre-school teachers...guess she'll always be "Miss" now in my head), Roberta, and Jill

Juli Beth, Miss Linda (another one of Brody's teachers), Shelly, Julie, Audria, Robyn, Staci, Jana, and Anna

After lunch we attempted the scavenger hunt that some of the women planned. It was extremely hard! Imagine trying to find one obscurely described object among 20 stores of random nick knacks. We went in one store and the owner told us the described item had been sold. So...we took a picture of Anna holding something else that said "Amazing Grace" with a sold sign. Little did we know that we we the only group that captured the picture of the correct item! This one was worth 75 points! Woot!

Jenny, Amy, and Jana hanging out in the meeting room.

Shelly and Anna with their scavenger hunt prize! Even though we gave up after a few stores, that 75 point picture was enough to put our team in 4th place!

Saturday night we wrapped up the last session around 10:30 and then snacked on some food and talked for a while. Then some of us headed down to the dock for some praise time. Slowly more and more of the women came and joined us as we lifted our voices to the Lord with songs of praise. We sat outside singing for an hour or two. It's hard to describe the joy and peace you feel when you sit outside under the stars and just praise the Creator!

Sunday morning I left our room a little early to have some quite time down on the dock. I spent some time talking with God and thinking back over all the things Marilyn had talked about. I listened to the water lap on the dock, the birds sing, and the ducks quack. Here's a picture of the view I had.

When the final session wrapped up it was time to head home. We stopped at Babe's for one last meal together. Amy, Jenny, Marilyn, Jana, Linda, and Juli Beth joined us. Here's a picture of me and the girls that stayed in our room: Robyn, Shelly, Anna, & Staci

Not only did I learn a lot this weekend, but I came back refreshed. Refreshed as a mom, refreshed as a wife, and refreshed as a daughter of God! I'm so excited to apply what I learned and to share it with others!