Alabama Ladies Retreat

I feel like I need to throw out a few disclaimers before we begin.

#1 -- This Retreat took place over two weeks ago. Anyone who knows me at all knows it's way too long for me to be able to recall very much about... except for a thousand tiny details that don't matter. I remember dumb stuff, just not things of any significance.

#2 -- I didn't touch my camera all weekend, therefore I have no pictures from Retreat to share, or even to help prick my memory and aid in my recollection of the happenings.

#3 -- My brain was way, way, way overtaxed at the time and I had been working on overload for a few weeks, thus hindering my already meager mental faculties.

~whew~ Now that I've squashed any and all hopes you might have had about reading a thrilling report, let's begin. :-)

I know that I went into Retreat on very, very little sleep, but I felt like the Lord had truly helped me. I still felt unprepared in some ways, but like God had so helped me in my prayers that it would all work out. And it did, of course. :-)

On Thursday morning James and the kids took me to meet Sister Bishop at the campground. We unloaded all of our Retreat stuff there, then James and the kids headed back home and Sister Bishop and I headed to Atlanta to pick up Emilee from the airport. She had been there several times before, of course, but we all know how Sister Bishop's mind works. Way too much like my own. She is not to be trusted! Ha! I took our GPS, "Sean" with us just in case and it ended up being a good thing. We did what Sister Bishop thought half the time and what Sean thought the other half and between the two of them we finally ended up in the right spot. It was especially entertaining because Sean has the voice of Sean Connery and Sister Bishop couldn't understand what he was saying with his Scottish accent, nor could she remember his name. She kept calling him “Charlie Brown” and every time he would say in that thick Scottish brogue, "Take the motorway" she would say, "The WHAT???" "The INTERSTATE," I would say, "He means INTERSTATE." We had that dialogue at least 5 or 6 times. Ha!

We finally got to the airport and ended up in the wrong parking terminal. We begged our way out of having to pay to exit (then we felt the extreme satisfaction of saving $2... even though we wouldn't have had to owe it anyway had we only been in the right place to begin with--ha!) and were able to get parked in a good location, walked in, and sat on a bench to wait for Emilee. We had only been there a few minutes before she showed up. It was so good to see her!!!

As we were wondering through the parking garage wondering where the car was (we did amazingly well and found it with very little effort), we happened to see Herbie! Or at least a new bug that is painted like him. My kid love Herbie, so I had to have Em take my picture with him. :-)


We had a nice drive back to Anniston, though I really don't remember much about it. I was really beginning to feel the 3:00am bedtime the night before! We went to a thrift store, but didn't find anything great. We had a good time, however, and wished Haley was there to make it a truly grand time. Then we went to Western Sizzlin’... that closes at 6:00!!! Can you imagine a restaurant like that closing at that hour?! We got there at 5:58, so they had to let us in (ha!), then we pretty much got to enjoy the joint all alone because they turned everyone else away.

We stopped by the grocery store on our way back to Sister Bishop's house. We got unloaded and Emilee and I talked for quite a while. It was so nice. Neither of us are really phone people, so we pretty much keep up with each other by reading one another's blogs. It was great to be able to spend some time with her.

After a little while we went to the living room and spent the rest of the evening visiting with Sister Bishop while cracking pecans and watching the VLB and WMB programs from this past Assembly. It was such a great night! We went to bed at a decent hour, I think--something I desperately needed.

The next morning Sister Bishop tried to serve us tar for breakfast. Okay, not really, but that's what it looked like! She meant to put a jar of muscadine jelly on the table, but instead she had grabbed a jar of overcooked muscadine hulls. I'm not kidding when I say it looked like we could go patch the cracks in the street with it, but it really didn't taste too bad. Still, we were relieved when she brought out the jelly. :-)

Sister Bishop took a picture of Em and me in front of her house before we left for Retreat that morning. It's so pretty there. :-)


Two other ladies rode with us to Retreat, so as soon as the arrived we got loaded up and headed that way. I thought we were going to be there plenty early. And we were... but so was everybody else! Ha! Brother Ridlespurge worked himself to death setting up the audio and video equipment as well as the projector (nobody told him we moved it all after he left, right???) and chairs for us, doing everything exactly as we requested and he even put up with all sorts of grief about the chairs not being sorted according to color. He's a great sport. We had a terrible time getting the PowerPoint stuff up and running the way we needed it to, but after a phone call to Jon (I HATE having to do that!!!) it finally popped up... and Brother Ridlespurge jumped out of his seat and made a run for it quick before anything else went wrong! Ha!

All the while we were trying to get all of that stuff worked out the ladies just kept coming in by twos or threes or fives, needing to register. I'd say over half of them were there BEFORE the listed registration time. Bunch of crazy people--what is it with being so timely?! I've never heard of such a thing! HA!

Before we knew it it was time to start the evening service. I felt a surge of panic before getting up front the first time. Well… and every other time. Ha! But then God would immediately and effectively calm my nerves and I was FINE, perfectly and completely FINE. Who knew that was possible?! I am always such a nervous wreck when I'm up in front of people--even people that I know, much less people I've just met. I get all trembly and my voice gets weak and shaky. It's miserable. But I didn’t feel the least bit nervous or uptight throughout the weekend, I just felt completely at ease and relaxed. If that’s not a miracle, then nothing is. :-) All I can say is: GOD IS FAITHFUL AND HE ANSWERS PRAYER--and I’m so, so, soooooo thankful!!! I had prayed sooooo much for this Retreat and I know that He flooded me with His help. I could feel it. I love feeling that. :-)

I felt pretty good about my devotions there. For the most part. Aside from the fact that I think I repeated myself over and over again. But I guess that’s what happens when you take one thought and split it up into four little mini-thoughts. I did learn that (unless God makes me) I am not "together" enough to direct a Retreat AND be in charge of the devotions--at least not without feeling scattered and pulled too many directions. It just felt like way too much--gotta pare back and do some more delegating next time. ;-)

In all of my praying about staff for this Retreat I never could settle on a song leader so I finally decided I would do it myself along with my devotions. But God knew that Emilee would be coming at the last minute and would so graciously take over that duty for me. :-) It was great and I was so thankful to have her help. All of the ladies got in there and sang all sorts of songs they'd never heard before. It was a blessing.

Sister Bishop was our "guest" speaker. What can you say about Sister Bishop??? She was SUCH a blessing to this Retreat!!! I just so love her Spirit, her honesty, her sincerity, her purity of heart and her desire to encourage others toward new heights in the Lord. I love her relationship with the Lord. I learn as much from her example and just being around her as I do by anything she says in her messages, though they are always so anointed.

And at this point I make my confession... I have no clue what she preached or what the teachers taught! Isn't that horrible?! I mentioned that my brain was on overload earlier. Every time I would sit still and try to concentrate on what was being said I could feel everything sort of seize up in my head--like an engine choking, sputtering, then dying. Ha! Unfortunately, when I direct a Retreat I get nothing out of it. HA! I don’t feel so bad saying that since Emilee told me the same thing is true with her! And it’s really a poor way of saying it—I DID get lots of out it and was so blessed. But my brain felt so overloaded with everything that I know I didn’t really soak up and retain much from the classes and sermons. But we recorded all of those, so I’ll be blessed by this Retreat in due time. :-) There was such a good spirit there and I felt so free in the Lord, such liberty in prayer and worship. Sister Cox and Sister Hawkins both did fantastic with their classes (that was my limited impression, but I also heard so from others) and Sister Bishop was amazing, as mentioned. The Saturday night service was especially powerful and the message full of some pretty big challenges concerning the good ole’ days and how worldly things have taken the place of the dedication and devotion to the Lord that used to bring down the power of God and amazing blessings that our generation has yet to experience. Good stuff. We had a wonderful time of prayer in the altar that night, too. I already feel such a love for all of these people and I love being able to pray with them and be one of them. I am so blessed.

Along with all of the spiritual stuff, we had a whole lot of fun at Retreat. Some people had fun until 5:00am in the morning that first night, I heard. ~ahem~ ;-) Several of us went canoeing during free time on Saturday. That was great, but would’ve been more fun if Emilee and I (me, really) could’ve gotten some of the other girls to race with us.

Hide-Away Time was something new to the ladies out here (they'd never heard of it before) and Fun Time was something new to me. I mean, we certainly had fun times at Ladies' Retreat out west, but never thought of actually devoting time on the schedule to it. :-) It was great though. I was "volunteered" to be part of the first game. It was a rather barbaric approach to the traditional game of musical chairs, only in this version they selected 6 young and healthy girls to play while the others sat in folding chairs encircling the arena observing much like the Romans would watch people be ripped to shreds by wild animals. The setting itself probably induced some rather aggressive and combative feelings among the participants. ~ahem~ Along with the setting, we were to use buckets instead of chairs... and we were blindfolded. While the music played, little fiends would sneak around rearranging the buckets and when the music stopped we were all to scramble around on the floor until we located a bucket to sit on, claiming it as our own and thus securing our place as winner (or at least not losers yet) in the game. Now, some people just don't seem to care anything in the world about winning. I don't understand people like that. Frankly, I didn't know I cared anything about winning this particular game either. In the beginning I was groaning on the inside and wondering why I was going to have to play such a game. But I figured it was only right to try to be a good sport. The music stopped that first time and I dropped to the floor and started feeling around for a bucket. I found one, but then realized there was somebody already sitting on it. Suddenly I cared about winning. There had been no premeditation about it, but I suddenly found myself raring back and ramming into the girl full force with my shoulder, knocking her off the bucket and onto the floor. I can honestly say I was just as surprised as everybody else--I don't know where it came from, it just HAPPENED. In the seconds to follow I found myself thinking, "I have no idea who else is playing this game... Who did I just knock onto the floor?... Did I just knock some old lady's hip out of joint or something?!" These were followed with thoughts such as, "Oh, no... I think I saw people holding cameras before this game started" and "James is going to KILL me." The girl who had been knocked to the floor ended up being just as competitive as I (~whew~ what a relief!) and we had a nice little wrestling match over that bucket until I felt it starting to rip in two and forfeited the steal. I found out later who it was and was a little embarrassed that I had taken out a girl who isn't even a Church member. Still, I think she was okay with it. She was sporting a pretty good carpet burn, but I think she acquired it later in the game. ;-) It ended up being a lot of fun, though I think we only played three rounds. They were either getting bored watching us or figured they should stop us before somebody got hurt. ;-)

Yes, I did tell James I took out the new girl at Retreat. I knew he'd hear it from somebody and figured I should give him the full version with explanation (not that he was impressed) before people started embellishing the facts. Ha! He handled the news better than I expected. I think perhaps he’s finally giving up on me ever behaving the way he wishes I would. ;-)

I've mentioned Emilee quite a bit already, but I just have to say again that I am sooooo glad she was there! I felt comfortable around all of the ladies at Retreat and had a great time, but I know it wouldn’t have been nearly so easy if it weren’t for having such a good friend at my side. Being in a crowd of people who I don’t know but who all know each other is about my worst nightmare, so it was WONDERFUL to have Em there. We did lots of talking throughout the weekend and I needed her there. In fact, I’m pretty sure I need her there every time… ;-)

Well, I'm sure there is a TON of stuff I didn't think to write about. But surely I've written enough. ;-) We had a truly great Retreat and I feel so blessed to be here. I feel like God is working me right into the place He's chosen for me in Alabama and I'm thankful to be one of 'em. I feel guilty saying things like that sometimes for fear my western friends will think I just don't care anymore! I love them all dearly and nothing will ever replace my love for those people or for the west in general. I will always love it and them in a special way, but I feel so blessed that God has chosen to take us away from everything I was so comfortable with and make me set down roots in a new and different place with new and different people. I can feel the growth in my own life already. I've never handled change well, but change is good for us. It feels fresh and like I'm having to depend and rely on God in whole new ways--and I love that! And I love the people here already--I so look forward to building good, strong, lasting relationships with them, too. I'm so grateful that they all just seem to open up and take us right in as if we've been here all along. If it wasn't so cheesy and from the Girl Scouts (which I hated being part of), I'd burst into song right about now... ;-)

Okay, that's it for one night. Next edition: Back to New Mexico!