Axis Retreat - part one :O) (it's long, but it's my blog so HAH)
Yeah, I don't know how to even start. I keep getting interrupted. This is part one.
I honestly can't stand people that go through one weekend of significance and think their entire life is changed. I don't often say I had a life-changing event take place or a realization or a moment of clarity where the heavens opened and angels sang etcetc. But.. they kind of did.
So, I got lost going to the resort. I ended up going twenty miles too far because the hotel neglected to tell me their resort was not visible from the road. I was stressin'. It took me forever to find my room, and I realized I overpacked like whoa, dragging my suitcase up and down stairs. Finally, got to my room, opened the door, and was greeted with an enthusiastic "Hi, roomie!" from a girl sitting on the bed with her Bible spread out in front of her. She told me her name was Guadelupe and right off the bat said she knew no one and had signed up for the retreat in excited anxiousness and I knew we'd get along right away. We decided to share one of the double beds and sat and talked for at least an hour, about boys (and their stupidness), college (she's graduated - she's 27), and the lack of opportunities to meet people in our 20's. Then we went downstairs together for the first session.
The guest speaker, LaRon Schultz, proved right away to be amazing. He talked about the fear of God (fear as in..trembling in awe due to lack of control over an existencially relevent thing) being the beginning of love for God. When he said we should fear God, I gave him this weird look; out of 250 people he was looking right at me and burst out laughing and told me thanks for the look. It was great. He told us about his experiences with God, being from an environment of legalism and how he felt called to break the mold. And he has. He knows how to talk to people, how to set us at ease and keep us listening. I got a lot out of it. Anyway, worship was fantastic because our worship leader Matt is back for good from London. Afterwards we had a dance in one ballroom while the rest of us remained for The Living Room - a casual, yet controlled environment designed to meet and start conversations with people. Lupe and I stayed and jumped to a table full of people. Right away we were led to talk amongst ourselves, answering questions. At first they were silly things; a funny memory from our childhoods; and then they went deep -- a time when God met us in our fear. Fear was a big theme of the weekend, and oddly enough, what I've been grappling with myself for so long and especially this weekend, with my anxiety over sleep and stuff. So I shared something extremely deep and almost cried voicing it, and everyone else followed suit. Lupe told us about a time that she was attacked by a spirit in Peru. She was there alone in a hotel under the covers and an angry spirit came over her and held her blankets down, trying to smother her. She said that she (she's from a Catholic background but is now Christian, to her Mother's dismay) prayed the Our Father because she didn't know what else to do and then she spoke out loud the name of God, and the spirit left. Through the discussion, I met Jen, who just seemed like the sweetest person ever. With a lot of those talks, I started to think about the fact there is a very real presence of the devil on earth here, and that while he can attack us, Christ will protect us, simply by speaking his name. Anyhoo. During discussion, we met Fernando and Jen as I mentioned; Fernando accompanied Lupe and I to the dance, where she danced and he and I hovered. We ended up staying up super late playing Catch Phrase with a group of people.. one of which being Andy, this really cool 25 year old (I think) from Libertyville and one being Michael, a really nice guy who unfortunately I didn't have much an opportunity to talk to. Then bed. Lupe and I discovered our roomate we hadn't met yet asleep in bed with the covers over her head and we were like, wondering who she was, cuz it's kinda weird to be in a room with someone you've never met, haha. We decided we couldn't sleep cuz we were too keyed up and we grabbed snacks and juice and sat down at the end of the roomie's bed on the floor to watch TV. The TV wasn't pointed towards our bed. We stayed up a while giggling and watchin That 70's Show. She and I... we were like peas in a pod, let me tell you. Everything she said, I could just relate to and understand and vice versa. When we finally went to bed - quite a small bed - I put my discman on because our roomie was snoring lightly but just enough to annoy me. I laid awake til at least 3:30 but ... I wasn't anxious. I laid there just silently praying and being grateful. When the alarm went off at 6:30, I was partly conscious (I think I just cat napped) but I was OK. I got to meet the roommates - Serena and Ann - who were both cool but were real life friends and had their own "posse" at the retreat so we didn't actually hang out much. But Serena is a Psych major so we have that in common.
Anyhow. Saturday. Freakin' fantastic. The sermon was about eating like Jesus did. I know it sounds super weird and believe me, LaRon got another weird look. Basically it was about how sacred meals were back then, and how the Pharisees and religious leaders at the time wouldn't eat with anyone who was considered impure or unclean or whatever, and how Jesus broke ALL those rules and used meals as a way to fellowship, inviting intentionally people that were "unclean". He talked about how Jesus showed us the foundation of community by the way he ate. We had amazing worship, then the opportunity to either go to this prayer room, or have Q&A with LaRon or go to the fitness center or pool or whatev. Lupe, Fernando and I went to the prayer room. They had candles lit everywhere and soothing music playing, pillows on the floors everywhere, and we were told the purpose was to "Be still and know He is God" and we could do whatever we wanted to quietly, and then the 3 prayer members were goin to come around and pray for us. Lupe and I curled up next to each other and prayed for about an hour and a half, I kid you not. That's the longest I've ever prayed. The prayer guy finally got around to me and he held my hands and began to pray. He said something like: God, I feel in Melissa that all she really wants to do is love people and give them a shoulder and an ear, but I ask you to provide people in her life willing to do that in return for her. Thank you for her openness and her willingness and compassion. God, I ask that you increase her discernment. I know she has seen things that have scared her -- maybe it was a trick of light or a feeling of her hair standing up on her neck or some kind of spirit -- please reassure her that she hasn't imagined it, and that your power is always greater and will protect her." Etcetc. Anyway, that freaked me out. Because from time to time I have had very powerful feelings of... awareness of evil... that I brush off because I just can't admit they're real, you know? I don't want to give power to whatever presence it was. And this was back when I lived in the townhouse; nothing since. But I guess it was real. From his prayer I was able to realize that I had in the past some kind of spiritual presence that was attacking me... so yeah, as soon as he was done praying I talked to Lupe about it and she said something like "Now that you know you were, you can recognize it if it happens again and you can call it out, and tell it to leave your home or your presence..." and we laid down and held hands briefly and were just quiet and reflective.
That day we had a reflection/devotion time. The three of us found a quiet corner and took some time to ask ourselves the question: What do I fear? How does the fear hinder me from entering into the "feast" of the spirit? (back to that "eating" thing). I wrote about six pages in my journal, jotting down random words, phrases, bible verses that came into mind, and I felt like in prayer I began to overcome a few of those fears. Like God spoke directly into the fear that was residing in me and told it it had no right to reign in me.
Hmm, more about the prayer room. I hesitate to talk about it because I know a lot of you that read this or whatever may really believe it's nutty but the prayer people (lol, I totally forgot their names) were sitting down with people and kinda prophesying over them. I'm going to write an entry on it when I get home, but I will tell you that the man and woman who prayed with me and then gave me a word from God -prophesy - knew stuff that they *couldn't* have known. And the woman got all teared up and hugged me and said she knew I had been hurt and I've experienced so much pain and that God just wants to hold my hand through it. She said a lot of other things, but I will tell you them in a later entry. But they were things that have absolutely, positively changed my life. Then Fernando, Lupe and I sat there in silence for a while longer, listening to a recording the prayer guy had done where he recited Bible verses with "I am" - basically like listening to love messages from God. My favorite, a phrase that always speaks to my heart, was when he recited, "My grace IS sufficent."OK, I have to take a break for a few so I'm going to post this and then write more about Saturday and Sunday in a few minutes. There's lots more, I want to have down because I never write detailed enough accounts and my memory is not the greatest, hehe. Back soon.
I honestly can't stand people that go through one weekend of significance and think their entire life is changed. I don't often say I had a life-changing event take place or a realization or a moment of clarity where the heavens opened and angels sang etcetc. But.. they kind of did.
So, I got lost going to the resort. I ended up going twenty miles too far because the hotel neglected to tell me their resort was not visible from the road. I was stressin'. It took me forever to find my room, and I realized I overpacked like whoa, dragging my suitcase up and down stairs. Finally, got to my room, opened the door, and was greeted with an enthusiastic "Hi, roomie!" from a girl sitting on the bed with her Bible spread out in front of her. She told me her name was Guadelupe and right off the bat said she knew no one and had signed up for the retreat in excited anxiousness and I knew we'd get along right away. We decided to share one of the double beds and sat and talked for at least an hour, about boys (and their stupidness), college (she's graduated - she's 27), and the lack of opportunities to meet people in our 20's. Then we went downstairs together for the first session.
The guest speaker, LaRon Schultz, proved right away to be amazing. He talked about the fear of God (fear as in..trembling in awe due to lack of control over an existencially relevent thing) being the beginning of love for God. When he said we should fear God, I gave him this weird look; out of 250 people he was looking right at me and burst out laughing and told me thanks for the look. It was great. He told us about his experiences with God, being from an environment of legalism and how he felt called to break the mold. And he has. He knows how to talk to people, how to set us at ease and keep us listening. I got a lot out of it. Anyway, worship was fantastic because our worship leader Matt is back for good from London. Afterwards we had a dance in one ballroom while the rest of us remained for The Living Room - a casual, yet controlled environment designed to meet and start conversations with people. Lupe and I stayed and jumped to a table full of people. Right away we were led to talk amongst ourselves, answering questions. At first they were silly things; a funny memory from our childhoods; and then they went deep -- a time when God met us in our fear. Fear was a big theme of the weekend, and oddly enough, what I've been grappling with myself for so long and especially this weekend, with my anxiety over sleep and stuff. So I shared something extremely deep and almost cried voicing it, and everyone else followed suit. Lupe told us about a time that she was attacked by a spirit in Peru. She was there alone in a hotel under the covers and an angry spirit came over her and held her blankets down, trying to smother her. She said that she (she's from a Catholic background but is now Christian, to her Mother's dismay) prayed the Our Father because she didn't know what else to do and then she spoke out loud the name of God, and the spirit left. Through the discussion, I met Jen, who just seemed like the sweetest person ever. With a lot of those talks, I started to think about the fact there is a very real presence of the devil on earth here, and that while he can attack us, Christ will protect us, simply by speaking his name. Anyhoo. During discussion, we met Fernando and Jen as I mentioned; Fernando accompanied Lupe and I to the dance, where she danced and he and I hovered. We ended up staying up super late playing Catch Phrase with a group of people.. one of which being Andy, this really cool 25 year old (I think) from Libertyville and one being Michael, a really nice guy who unfortunately I didn't have much an opportunity to talk to. Then bed. Lupe and I discovered our roomate we hadn't met yet asleep in bed with the covers over her head and we were like, wondering who she was, cuz it's kinda weird to be in a room with someone you've never met, haha. We decided we couldn't sleep cuz we were too keyed up and we grabbed snacks and juice and sat down at the end of the roomie's bed on the floor to watch TV. The TV wasn't pointed towards our bed. We stayed up a while giggling and watchin That 70's Show. She and I... we were like peas in a pod, let me tell you. Everything she said, I could just relate to and understand and vice versa. When we finally went to bed - quite a small bed - I put my discman on because our roomie was snoring lightly but just enough to annoy me. I laid awake til at least 3:30 but ... I wasn't anxious. I laid there just silently praying and being grateful. When the alarm went off at 6:30, I was partly conscious (I think I just cat napped) but I was OK. I got to meet the roommates - Serena and Ann - who were both cool but were real life friends and had their own "posse" at the retreat so we didn't actually hang out much. But Serena is a Psych major so we have that in common.
Anyhow. Saturday. Freakin' fantastic. The sermon was about eating like Jesus did. I know it sounds super weird and believe me, LaRon got another weird look. Basically it was about how sacred meals were back then, and how the Pharisees and religious leaders at the time wouldn't eat with anyone who was considered impure or unclean or whatever, and how Jesus broke ALL those rules and used meals as a way to fellowship, inviting intentionally people that were "unclean". He talked about how Jesus showed us the foundation of community by the way he ate. We had amazing worship, then the opportunity to either go to this prayer room, or have Q&A with LaRon or go to the fitness center or pool or whatev. Lupe, Fernando and I went to the prayer room. They had candles lit everywhere and soothing music playing, pillows on the floors everywhere, and we were told the purpose was to "Be still and know He is God" and we could do whatever we wanted to quietly, and then the 3 prayer members were goin to come around and pray for us. Lupe and I curled up next to each other and prayed for about an hour and a half, I kid you not. That's the longest I've ever prayed. The prayer guy finally got around to me and he held my hands and began to pray. He said something like: God, I feel in Melissa that all she really wants to do is love people and give them a shoulder and an ear, but I ask you to provide people in her life willing to do that in return for her. Thank you for her openness and her willingness and compassion. God, I ask that you increase her discernment. I know she has seen things that have scared her -- maybe it was a trick of light or a feeling of her hair standing up on her neck or some kind of spirit -- please reassure her that she hasn't imagined it, and that your power is always greater and will protect her." Etcetc. Anyway, that freaked me out. Because from time to time I have had very powerful feelings of... awareness of evil... that I brush off because I just can't admit they're real, you know? I don't want to give power to whatever presence it was. And this was back when I lived in the townhouse; nothing since. But I guess it was real. From his prayer I was able to realize that I had in the past some kind of spiritual presence that was attacking me... so yeah, as soon as he was done praying I talked to Lupe about it and she said something like "Now that you know you were, you can recognize it if it happens again and you can call it out, and tell it to leave your home or your presence..." and we laid down and held hands briefly and were just quiet and reflective.
That day we had a reflection/devotion time. The three of us found a quiet corner and took some time to ask ourselves the question: What do I fear? How does the fear hinder me from entering into the "feast" of the spirit? (back to that "eating" thing). I wrote about six pages in my journal, jotting down random words, phrases, bible verses that came into mind, and I felt like in prayer I began to overcome a few of those fears. Like God spoke directly into the fear that was residing in me and told it it had no right to reign in me.
Hmm, more about the prayer room. I hesitate to talk about it because I know a lot of you that read this or whatever may really believe it's nutty but the prayer people (lol, I totally forgot their names) were sitting down with people and kinda prophesying over them. I'm going to write an entry on it when I get home, but I will tell you that the man and woman who prayed with me and then gave me a word from God -prophesy - knew stuff that they *couldn't* have known. And the woman got all teared up and hugged me and said she knew I had been hurt and I've experienced so much pain and that God just wants to hold my hand through it. She said a lot of other things, but I will tell you them in a later entry. But they were things that have absolutely, positively changed my life. Then Fernando, Lupe and I sat there in silence for a while longer, listening to a recording the prayer guy had done where he recited Bible verses with "I am" - basically like listening to love messages from God. My favorite, a phrase that always speaks to my heart, was when he recited, "My grace IS sufficent."OK, I have to take a break for a few so I'm going to post this and then write more about Saturday and Sunday in a few minutes. There's lots more, I want to have down because I never write detailed enough accounts and my memory is not the greatest, hehe. Back soon.
posted by Oblivion.. at 11:01 AM
1 Comments:
Hi there!
I was at your table in the Living Room discussion and shared the story about my brother sleepwalking at night and peeing in the hamper, thinking it was the toilet! I found your blog from the Axis blog comment you left and REALLY enjoyed reading it. Wow...I relived a lot of the retreat and wish I had journaled more of what happened on my own. I'll be at the Axis elements thing tonight..not sure if you're going. Anyway...see you around.
Kristine Socall
Willowcreek-Dupage regional expression of Axis: www.emerginglives.org
Post a Comment
<< Home