Retreat! Retreat!

Okay, I admit it.  Shawn and I are homebodies.  We are wallflowers and extremely unsocial(ized?).  We tend to be private people--except of course, for the thoughts I post here!   We are very comfortable inside our little boxes, inside our very small social circle and inside ourselves.  We both feel very awkward when we are outside our element.  Sometimes we feel that if we reveal our true selves in a social situation, especially with our church family, it will be like the Indians meeting the Pilgrims (and we're the Indians).   Hmmm...  I wonder if this explains anything about Noah?! 


Our church holds several different kinds of retreats throughout the year for men, women, families and youth.  Because we are us, when Shawn and I hear the word "retreat" we, well, RETREAT!  Shawn did everything he could to encourage me to go on the women's retreat the first year we joined our church.  He stopped just short of filling out the paperwork for me and handing the check to our women's ministry leader.  I did everything but run screaming for the door like my hair was on fire.  I finally made the huge choice to go to a Beth Moore conference, but only because I was able to drag a good friend along as my security blanket.  When the women's retreat rolled around last year, I again did everything I could to dodge the social bullet.  It's not that I don't like the women in our church or that I don't want to hang out with them--I do like them and I would like to spend time with them--but these situations are just unbearably uncomfortable for me.  There's no place for me to run if I start feeling trapped, claustrophobic or overwhelmed.  If I need to skip an activity to have some downtime, I worry people will think I'm rude, snobby and anti-social instead of just being in need of a few deep breaths.  It takes me years to open up to some people (see, I can open up to all of you because I know very few of you and I don't have to look you in the eyes when I'm writing....  :)  ). And besides all of that, have you ever been in a room full of chatty women?  Ugh.....


I'm not too terribly fond of women's dinners either.  I've gone to them, but I've usually slunk out the back at the first possible chance.  When I was pregnant with Avery, a friend invited me to a dinner at her church.  Even after I told her no, she purchased my ticket anyway and I ended up feeling obligated to go.  Rotten friend (!).  I put up a real fight about it, though.  She asked me why I didn't want to go, why I would avoid a chance to hear a message from God, a chance to grow closer to God and really hear what He has to say to me.  With a skeptical look, I said, "Where would you like me to start?"  It's not that I didn't want to hear God's message, I just didn't want to do it in a room full of women!   I've been turned off from them due to other participants from past dinners: the woman who literally spent over an hour praying at a near-orgasmic height, not because she had important things to say from or to God, but because she liked the sound of her own voice;  the woman who sat next to me at another dinner when I was hugely pregnant with Avery, sharing some very scary and inappropriate details about the birth of one of her children; the women who look down on you because you are there just for food, fun, fellowship and a message from God, not gossip; the women who look down on you for any reason, judging you and making you feel inferior.  Hmmm.....  Maybe I was hanging out with the wrong crowd.  Or maybe I had the wrong perspective.....  Nahhhhh......  That couldn't be it.....

One of my fears (of many) going into a women's retreat is not having someone to room with.  My fear goes back to my elementary school days when I was usually picked last for the team (well, there are other factors, but it kind of starts there).  Yes, I'm serious.  And yes, I know it's sad.  But it's all about self confidence, which is something I lack, but that is something for another post!  What if no one picks me?  And what if the woman I am paired with doesn't like me or felt she had to suffer through my presence?  What if I get clingy, or I become so afraid of being clingy that I end up being a snob?  What if I SNORE???????  Or drool in my sleep???


Many of my fears run hand-in-hand with my Bible study fears.  I know that in the state of mind I've been in lately, I will most likely end up in tears more than once over the course of a women's retreat weekend. I don't want to be the Women's Retreat Hog.  I don't want attention focused on me.  I want my time, I want to be able to participate fully and say what I'm thinking without being judged, but I don't want attention focused on me.

Please don't misunderstand me.  I love that mountaintop feeling when I am closest to the Lord.  I love that contagious feeling after good prayer, good conversation and good fellowship with fellow Believers, and I love just being with God.  Him and me, me and Him.  But I do have trust and control issues (DUH), which are where most of my fears have taken root.  I have trusted the wrong people and gotten hurt because of it.  And the less control I have over a situation, the more untrusting and panicky I can be.  I'm just not a retreat-y type of person.

Well, it's that time again.  When I was handed the brochure for our church's upcoming women's retreat, my blood turned to ice and I began sweating at the same time.  What excuse could I come up with this time?  Maybe I could just stay away for a while and come back at the end of March?  Or maybe I could just find a new church altogether!


God isn't having any of that, though.  As I've said in previous posts, He is busy stirring my nest.  He is busy making me uncomfortable in my safe little box and telling me it's time for new experiences with Him.  It's time to put on my big girl panties and GO.  Much as He did with the Bible study, God has shouted, "IT'S TIME, CHILD.  YOU ARE GOING."  And I realize God is right in this, as He is with everything.  This is my time.  I need this retreat more than I have ever needed anything else before.  I need this time for myself and for God.  As with the Bible study, this is something else I need to for myself, as well as for my family.  He has even provided me with a roommate (Someone who likes me!  And I like her!  And she asked me, so I wasn't chosen last and I didn't have to ask her and worry she felt obligated to say yes!) and has shown me the path.  Divine intervention at it's best.


Oh, and you'll like this....  We just filled out the form for our church's family retreat in June (and I can't tell you how relieved I am that Shawn saw the "cabin options" and has yet to see the "tent options," which, thankfully, are in MUCH smaller print--WHEW!)...  Yep, we're taking the retreat plunge as a family next!  It looks like this church might make retreat-ers out of us after all... Well, in the opposite sense of how this post began!