This weekend, FPC had its annual Women's Retreat. For reasons that I cannot totally understand, this "retreat" is actually no such thing, as it takes place at ... FPC. In the past we've gone to Forsyth, and I found that even more irritating. I mean, Forsyth? Seriously? We'd stay at a dumpy little motel right off the Interstate, 20 miles north of Macon. If I'm retreating, at least make it a mountain retreat, or a lakeside retreat, or even a Callaway Gardens retreat, or something. Right?
But I digress. The speaker, Amanda Bailey, was great. It's the third year that she's come, and I've yet to be disappointed. And that's certainly saying something for me, as you all know very very well how very very much I dread all things "Women" and "Ladies" and so on. And the music! Someone at FPC had a rare moment of unstuffy enlightenment and recruited the Redeemer boys to lead. Hurray for Redeemer boys! The few single girls in attendance were swooning, I must say.
The focus of the weekend was the topic of Biblical joy, which stems from true, Biblical contentment. As an adult (my teen years are a different story), I have rarely struggled with contentment. My personality is such that I don't worry much about things, sometimes to a point of sinful laziness. In graduate school, my lack of worry led to miserable all-night paper-writing sessions, for example.
Anyway, God has blessed me with a laid back, take-things-as-they-come attitude. My realization of God's total and complete sovereignty a few years ago did nothing but strengthen this blessing. However, in the last six months or so, I have allowed others to penetrate that wall of contentment and plant seeds of doubt in my mind about God's absolute power and control in my life. I have let the well-meaning nagging of friends and loved ones begin to crack my peace that God will work things out when and how He sees fit.
A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to my beloved friend Meredith on my way back to Macon from my niece's first birthday. Strangely enough, she is dealing with the exact same situation that I'm in, and her joyful and positive perspective allowed me to see the sin of discontent in my life.
The worst part about it all is that, in the grumbling and whining and nagging and pouting that I had been doing about the future, I was missing out on (and perhaps even sabotaging) the exciting things that were happening in the present. Never again will I be in this phase of my life, being able to enjoy the things that I experience on a day-to-day basis. My preoccupation with the future was robbing me of joyfully living my present.
During that conversation with Mere, something clicked. God transformed my outlook on my present life. I am now able to roll my eyes at the aggravating questions and the nagging and the why-not-yets of my friends, family, and acquaintances and TRULY walk away without the doubts overtaking my happiness and satisfaction with the way things are now. And since then, I've been amazed at how much I have LOVED the way things are now.
So the future? Who cares. Right now, I wanna live and enjoy and relish... the right now.
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2 comments:
That's good stuff, Mir. Thanks for being willing to share - you have encouraged!
(And way to enjoy the women's retreat. Asheville's too nonconformist for retreats . . . and I kind of miss having them!)
AMEN and Amen, sister!!!
you can pray for the redeemer retreat coming up in a couple of weeks...pray mainly that my hubby doesn't burn the house down or spend all of our money on eating out for every meal...this is his first time alone in the house for an extended period of time...lol
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