Women's Retreat

We had our Fall Women's Retreat this weekend. It went great, other than me feeling absolutely miserable! I am now definitely sicker than last week. I asked the pharmacist if there was anything I could take (because of being pregnant), he just laughed at me! Now, I feel like I could just curl up and die. Of course when I do curl up, I get heartburn and I feel like I'm squishing the baby, not to mention that I can't hardly breathe because I'm so stuffed up. Then there's the intense pain in my ears and the burning in my throat. . . ok, enough whining!
Back to the retreat, we had a good turnout and I think everyone had a good time! Friday night, we had a fun time of fellowship and of course played our annual game of Taboo! (should I mention that my team won?!) About 1:00am those of us that where still up decided we needed to go to Denny's. I have been craving biscuits and gravy for awhile. The top picture is Jenaya and Sara at Denny's, and the next picture is Jessica and Keren at Denny's. Jessica, Keren and I spent the night, well, the early morning hours, at the church. I wasn't sure if I would get my five months pregnant body off of the nursery floor in the morning, but I managed.

Saturday we had a great day of learning from the Word. (And of course lot's of food!) Deborah shared with us in the first session what she does for her devotional time. She is amazing! She spends one to two hours every morning, reading five Psalms, two Valley of Vision prayers and then she has a separate notebook for each member of her family (six people including herself). She uses those to pray specific requests for each of them, and then she finds Scripture to pray for them for that day. She does some other things too. When I asked her to be one of our speakers, I asked her because I knew she was a Godly woman, but I didn't realize how deep her devotional life is. God really had me choose the right person! She is so gracious and humble too, it never came across as pious. For our second session, I had everyone go off on their own and just spend time in God's Word. We are all so busy and have so many distractions at home, that I had hoped this would be a real gift to them to have an uninterrupted hour. For our third session Betty shared with us how she realized that God was her shepherd when she battled breast cancer this summer. It was great to see how she applied something she had learned in her devotional life, practically.

The retreat was a lot of work, but it was worth it. It was a great time of fellowship and learning. I loved seeing women getting to know other women that they didn't know before. We always make place cards and move them around to different spots for each meal so they have to sit with someone new. This avoids cliques.

Now, I'm going to try to take a nap while Rylie watches Wonder Pets! (Yes, we skipped church today!)