Christian Women's Retreat

This past weekend, our Christian Women group from church went on a retreat to Camp ToKnowHim in Pisgah. It was nice to get away (even though I missed Zach, Daisy and Cosmo very much!), and spend time with friends. It was especially nice to not have to fix up and dress up the entire weekend!! (You can tell this from our pictures of me with my curly hair! haha) We had a great time of worship, singing and chatting with each other.

We arrived there on Friday, which was my and Amanda Shirey's birthday, and the girls all sang to us after our devotion that night. We had cake and then sang a lot of songs around the piano, which I loved! We stayed up talking for hours that night. On Saturday, we had two devotions by Janet O'Neal (who did a wonderful job!) and spent a lot of time in our small groups. We ended the night by having a Communion service and listening to Susan Downey sing while LaRae Thurman played the piano- both incredibly talented ladies.

Our main lesson for the weekend was to not expect so much of ourselves. Try to be a good Christian woman, wife, mother, friend, co-worker, etc., but don't push yourself to be perfect. This really helped me to realize that I cannot be the perfect person. As a new wife, I feel like I have to have the house spotless, dinner cooked perfectly, the laundry always done, and so on, all the time. This won't EVER happen! There are always times when we sacrifice time spent with our families to work instead, whether it be with our jobs or work done at home. Sometimes, we should just try leaving that laundry in the hamper while we spend quality time with our husbands and/or children. I'm not saying NEVER clean house or get anything done, but we shouldn't make it our top priority as we sometimes (almost always) do! Not only should we spend time with our families, but we should give our time to God. I realized this weekend how we can always make time for what we want to. For example, I've said before that I didn't have time to start going back to the rec center, yet I always find the time to watch my favorite TV shows!

I was really blessed this weekend by the music and by everyone sharing things about themselves. I found out just how much we can learn from each other if we just open up. I'm also glad I had the chance to get to know a lot of women from church on the trip. I'm already excited about going next year!!