Women's Retreat 2010: Unchained

The Women's Retreat was a weekend that I will never forget for the rest of my life. I have been a part of many things in my life, but this weekend was a true blessing. God placed it on my heart to coordinate this event months ago, and I was amazed at how He used every step of my journey this past year to help make this happen. After months of planning, praying, and preparing it finally happened and God did amazing things.

I have seriously spent the last 24 hours sleeping. I got up to go to church, and return a few emails, but for the most part my head has been on the pillow. I guess all the preparing and pressure really got to my body because I crashed as soon as it was over. I am sure pregnancy effected things as well! Looking back, I am not even sure how I made it to the retreat after a crazy week like last week! I am still super tired but I figured I should get up and blog some pictures before another week gets started.

Here was one of the tables at the retreat....Shai did a great job at making the place look fantastic!!!

Here I am announcing my women's team. There is NO WAY that I could have done it without them!
We asked the ladies to create a face mask out of foil before we began. I talked to them about the importance of being "real" and taking their masks off. So many times women walk around with their masks on and I knew that we had to take our masks off before we truly got started.
We did a skit for the ladies. God spoke to me and my sister months ago about what the skit needed to really portray and it was very powerful! The next 2 pictures are from the skit....

Then it was my turn to speak. Never in my life have I been so nervous to speak. Speaking has always come natural to me and it never really made me nervous. But Friday night was different. I am not sure if it's because there were 115 women staring back at me, or if it was because I knew what I was going to be talking about and I was afraid to get emotional...but it was one of the hardest nights of my life.

I wasn't prepared for that anxiety at all. I asked several people to pray over me, I stayed in constant prayer myself, and I just continued to believe that somehow God would carry me through. Because at point I knew that there was no way I would ever get through it. Just about the time I started talking, the pain in my stomach faded and I felt the Lord taking over. Boy was I relieved. At that moment I knew I was going to be ok, and I knew I was going to be able to share my heart in the way that I wanted. But it was a rough few hours leading up to it.

I spoke on the CHAINS that women all over are held in bondage by. Months ago God begin to show me that some of the reasons I wasn't truly happy was because I was allowing my chains to guide my life. I was allowing my bondage to keep me from experiencing God's best. And I was allowing my chains to choke me and drag me around by the neck. I never could get a hold of my chains and therefor life was much harder than it should have been.

But over the last year God has really began to help me identify my chains so that I can be freed from chains. There is no greater feeling than feeling free, it sure beats that suffocating feeling that chains bring.

Several ladies have asked me to write out all the chains that I discussed Friday night so I just figured I would do it on here. I came up with the TOP 10 chains that women struggle with the most. I carried around a bag to represent my "baggage" and I had 10 objects in it to represent my chains. So here goes...

#1. Our Weight

Our bodies and our weight have a tendency to control our day and even our life. We allow a scale to make us feel worthy or unworthy and I don't think we understand the danger in doing this. I feel it's important to care about your health, and to exercise, but doing it the right way matters so much. As women, I think our weight controls so much in our lives. I think we judge more when we see women that are a less weight than we are, and I think we use our weight to determine our worth.

#2. The Mirror

Each day we look in the mirror, usually first thing. (or at least after we go to the bathroom) The mirror starts and ends our day, and we listen to what it says to us. If we are having a "good looks" day then the mirror says something we like, but if not...then it doesn't. I tried to encourage the women to NOT start their day by listening to the mirror. Mirrors are so inconsistent, they all say different things, so we shouldn't allow them to control our thoughts and our life.

#3: Addictions

Alcohol, cigarettes, the computer, sex, food, face book, pain pills....these are all addictions that women use to numb the pain in their lives. Addictions is like a secondary chain that we take on once we can't handle the first chain. We would rather be addicted by one of these things, so we don't have to really feel, instead of just handling the pain the right way.

#4: Acceptance

We care WAY too much about what other people think. When we live our life in this chain, we will continue to be disappointed. There is no way that we will ever please everyone and we shouldn't spend our lives trying. We should do our very best, be our very best, lived for Christ, and we shouldn't worry about the rest. People are HARD to please. If they don't accept you for who you are, then that is their problem. Not yours.

#5: Abuse

Physical abuse, emotional abuse and sexual abuse. Abuse is something that tends to control a person until the day that they die, unless they can CHOOSE to find a way to let go of it. Many times the abuse occurred years ago but they cannot seem to let go. The chain of abuse is one that can get a person to a very lonely place, and it is one that will change your life if you can find a way to move on from it.

#6: Our Thoughts

Have you ever allowed 1 thought to turn into 10 thoughts? It's like we create things in our head and before we know it we think that we have figured it all out but usually we have just used our imagination to cause pain that shouldn't even exist. It is so hard for women to control their thoughts because it is so easy to let them get out of control. Our mind is a powerful thing, it can make us or break us sometimes. I try to squash any thought that comes into my head that is not a God thought. The second the thought comes in my head, I get it out fast if I see that it is going to be damaging.

#7: The Past

Oh how many times do we allow Satan to throw our past in our face? This one needs no explanation. There is no reason to be stuck on the past, or worry about what you did, or worry about what someone did to you. God doesn't not want us to live in the past, that is why He died on the cross.

#8: Death and grieving

A lot of times losing someone you love can become your chain if you are not careful. If you don't grieve well, and if you don't work through the pain then you can get stuck in the same place for a very long time. I talked about Brittany when I talked about this. It was so emotional for me and I could barely keep it together, but I felt that it was an important part of my grieving. I think it's good to remember the good times, and that's what I did. I also think that many of us are chained to death because we are scared to die. It's a common fear. But we have to remember that everyone dies so we are going to die. We have to learn to truly live each day like it was our last.

#9: Control

Control is my chain that is in "the works." God is working on me with this but it has yet to be completely broken. I have always been a good planner. I like to plan things for the future, I am very organized, and all that. But God has really started to teach me that I am not in control of everything I think. Especially pregnancy. Here is an example. We have been trying to get pregnant for the past few months. I was SURE that it would happen the first time, and it didn't. Several months in a row I saw "negative" on the test. Well this last month I decided that I didn't want to get pregnant. I told God that I would rather not have a baby so close to Christmas. So we were not trying. And then last week I saw "positive." It was like God was slapping me in the face, telling me that I will get pregnant when He wants me to get pregnant. Like I said, He is still trying to teach me this one! Of course I am thrilled to be pregnant, I will just be 9 months preggers at Christmas!!!! Seriously!!

#10: Another Person

Many of us allow another person to control how we feel. Whether it be our spouse, our boss, or another woman. If someone is prettier, then it changes how we feel about ourselves or that person. If our spouse messes up then we tend to take it personally and think that something is wrong with us. If our boss isn't impressed by us then we think that we are not good enough. WAY TOO MANY times we let other people control whether or not we are worthy or good enough. Only God can meet that need, I don't know we allow others to do that.

Any of those chains sound familiar? Someone said something to me this weekend that made EVERYTHING make sense. Right before I spoke she said..."God has been preparing you for today." She said that God has been using each step of my journey, each painful experience, every good moment, as well as every difficult moment to prepare me to speak at this women's retreat. When she said that it all made sense. When she said that it made ALL my pain worth it, because I knew that God would use it. I was thankful for those words because they gave me the strength I needed to share my heart.

After I was done, we all wrote our chains on paper and nailed them to the cross because that is where they belong. God died so that we don't have to live in bondage, He died so that we could live in freedom.

Once they were all nailed up there, we burned them. They were gone. Once we take our chains to the cross, He takes them away.
It was a wonderful night and I won't forget it.

Here are a few more pictures from the weekend! Boot camp started early that morning and we had 23 show up!!! Way to go girls!

Here is Beth teaching the armor of God and using me as her example!
Here is my women's team...THANK ALL OF Y'ALL!!!! I love you so much!!!

The retreat leaders: Julie, Beth, Shannon and myself
The last picture is ALL of the women who came. WOW!!!!! God is good!!!