Quotes from the Erosion book I am reading:

• Attention is the holy grail.
• Erosion – what is whittled, worn, and weathered away through wind, water, and time – is as beautiful as what remains.
• We are being worn down to our essence as we are forced to change course.
• We need not lost hope, we just need to locate where it dwells.

The ladies of Springs had their very first church led retreat:

A team of ladies got together and prayed, worked, decided what to do, and we did it. It was one of the best retreats I have ever been too. One of the gifts of God was the view. When we got there the cloudy gray skies and covered sun hid the beauty. But in the morning. WOW – glory!

The backstory:

At one of the Ladies Hangouts, which are every 2nd Tuesday of the month, a group of 6 ladies were standing outside Sushi House saying goodbye. A conversation that started inside came with them. Can we do a retreat? As they all look at Jen and me. I said, “Sure, but we can’t be the ones to run it. We have too much on our plates, we can support, we can help, but we can do it all. And that what that. After some other pleasantries we all went home. I didn’t think any more about it, I was serious. There was no way that Jen and I could put on a retreat. We didn’t have the bandwidth.

A few weeks went by and one of the ladies – who had come to the hangouts but hadn’t yet come to our main Sunday service. Began asking questions and trying to set up a time to meet to start planning. God works in mysterious ways. If we are to do it, the Lord will do that work. Liz became the catalyst to get us started. And then halfway through planning Liz moved on. God is so good to accomplish what He wants to accomplish. And the rest of us were planning a retreat.

I didn’t want my voice to become the one that led stuff and I felt like the Lord was highlighting Jodie for decision making. So, I dubbed her our leader. She messaged the group with meeting reminders and when it seemed we were at a crossroads. She would choose. Christina would show up to meetings with itinerary and ideas ready to discuss. Michelle dreamed and made us beautiful things. And Jen, Lindsay, and I followed their lead and helped where we could. It was glorious. Then we added Sarah for worship and Aroea – sounds like A row -aa became our speaker.

This past weekend was one of the most glorious ladies’ gatherings:

We stayed at Ewalu stone retreat center. We worshiped. We laughed hard. We prayed for each other. We head from the Lord. It was so refreshing to Just Be.

These women love the Lord and each other. It really is something special.

Song that touched my heart and keeps playing in my head:

I think the joy of seeing each other at church this morning is going to feel awesome!

Thanks for listening,

Starla