Ronda's Reflections
~ of the Women's Retreat
It was my third year to participate in the Pinecrest Women's
Retreat. I thank God that I
am able to attend and I look forward to this event every year.
This year, the Lord took me in a new direction. He taught me the
gift of fellowship, friendships, and bonds through
Jesus. Christian fellowship
is something that is very important in our walk with Christ.
As the Word says in Hebrews 10:25, “…forsake not the
assembling of ourselves together.”
We are to have fellowship and be there for each other.
Yes, this does mean that we should be in church,
but we should also fellowship beyond the church walls. The retreat gave us an opportunity to do that.
We rejoiced together and we praised the Lord together. We talked,
shared, laughed and cried together.
Bonds were formed and we all came together in unity -- as one.
Each year the women in our church grow closer and closer and each
year we appreciate each other more and more. The body of Christ is
awesome!
When we become brothers and sisters in
Christ, there is an added blessing of Christian friendship that the Lord
gives us to go with His gift of life (salvation). The Lord gives us special friends (sisters) in the body that
we bond with, spend time with, can count on and simply relate to.
There is such a thing as friendships in the world, but when you
are saved through Jesus Christ, that friendship goes much deeper.
I have some very special friendships with my sisters in Christ,
but this year the Lord added several more to enrich my life. We had an
awesome time!
We got to know each other, and shared events of our lives and in
our walk with Christ that encouraged and blessed each other.
Some of us had never known each other before, and yet the bond
was there because of Jesus. Before I received Christ, I had no friends.
Through Christ, I now have friends… not just friends, but sisters.
There is one moment of this retreat that I'll never forget.
The Lord truly gave me a blessing that I hold precious -- A
spiritual mom. This is a precious blessing of God. It was such a special moment and it was a desire of my heart
that the Lord knew I had wanted for so long. No one can replace a
mom, but no one can replace a spiritual mom either. A spiritual
mom guides you in the things of the kingdom, of the Word, of Jesus --
Eternal things. She prays
for you and is there for you. She
was there for me at a time of the retreat when I needed someone
the most. No one had been there for me in that way before and Jesus was
the one who brought her into my life. He
knows our every need. What
a precious gift!
As a woman of God who is a wife, mom, sister, etc., the expectations of
this world are huge, and we are pulled in many different directions.
Through the Word, I learned that in any situation, no matter how
difficult it is or how it may seem, if we lay it down before Jesus and
allow Him to take control, and we focus on Him and not the situation,
that everything will be OK. Sometimes,
we hold on to the things of this world thinking we always have to be in
control. We think everything
will fall apart if we aren't there, or it won't get done. But, if
we will let go and let God take control and trust Him,
everything will be OK. We
will have the strength and endurance to walk through it (“Yea, though
I walk through the valley of death…” - Psalm 23:4), because Jesus is
the One who is giving us what we need.
We truly cannot do anything without Christ. It's when we try to do it without Him that things
overwhelm us. We can have “the peace of God which passes all
understanding” (Philipians 4:7) through all situations if we
will allow Him to give us that peace.
Lay it down... and see.
In Christ,
Ronda
