Retreat

You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. - Jeremiah 29:13 (NKJV)
      
      
It’s amazing what God tells you when you slow down enough to listen.
      
If you’ve been following this blog, you know that I retired from teaching school two weeks ago. Health issues, particularly an ongoing, worsening fatigue, and a string of health challenges (two surgeries, two bouts of a lingering virus, one of which kept me down for a week and dragging for a month, and an allergic reaction to a wasp sting which sent me to the ER) forced me to relinquish a job I loved. A 59-year-old body can take only so much.
      
I’d like to say I feel great, that the fatigue is gone, my energy has returned, my brain fog has cleared up, and I’m sleeping well. But I can’t. While I’m not as exhausted as I was, I’m nowhere near where I want to be. Will I ever be? I wonder.
       
“I feel beat up in body, mind, and spirit,” I told my husband.
      
So I decided to spend my mornings in a personal retreat, feeding my dried up spirit, soaking up the Word, reading spiritual help books, and working through a couple of Bible studies.
      
In her book, Meet Me at the Well, Virelle Kidder tells of when the prophet Elijah needed a retreat. The first time he ended up at the Brook Kerith, exhausted. It was there God sent ravens to bring him bread and meat in the morning and evening. The brook provided the water to drink. The second time Elijah was running scared, his life threatened by a wicked queen. He just wanted to curl up and die.
      
“I’ve had enough, Lord,” he prayed. “Take my life.” Then he lay down and fell asleep.
      
Ever feel that way? Me, too.
      
But God knew what his exhausted prophet needed. A few hours later, someone—an angel—tapped Elijah on the shoulder. “Get up and eat.” 
      
He ate the freshly baked bread, drank from the jar of water, then lay down again. A second time it happened. After that he trekked to Mount Horeb, where he found the perfect retreat—a cave. It was there he learned to listen to the still, small voice of God.
      
Life before fatigue stopped me in my tracks was too noisy for me to hear the gentle whispers of the God I professed to love and serve—but didn’t take the time to really listen to. My time with Him was more like rushing through a drive-through for a quickie meal than reclining at a table prepared just for me (Psalm 23:5). No wonder my spirit was so dried up!
      
But, drop by drop, sip by sip, gulp by gulp, I’m drinking from the water of life. And God has not disappointed me. I’ve filled pages and pages in my spiritual journal with notes—insights—of things that God is showing me.* No major life changes, but a clearer perspective.
      
Virelle writes: “Elijah’s assignment? Just rest, eat, drink, and listen to God. . . . Rest is a certain step toward renewal.”
      
Right now, at this time in my life, that’s my assignment, too.
      
      
O God, You are my God, earnestly I seek You: my soul thirsts for You, my body longs for You, in a dry and wearly land where there is no water (Psalm 63:1). Amen.

*I’ll be sharing these insights with you in future blogs. Stay tuned!

NOTE: Virelle Kidder will be the featured speaker at the 2011 Punxsutawney Christian Women’s Conference, “Meet Me at the Well,” on Saturday, Oct. 1 at the Punxsutawney First Church of God. For more information, email me at punxsycwc@gmail.com or visit the conference blog at http://punxsycwc.blogspot.com .
 

The hem of His garment

"The Hem of His Garment," © 2004 by MessianicArt.com

If only I may touch His clothes, I shall be made well. - Mark 5:28 (NKJV)
      
      
For 12 long years she suffered. She tried every recourse available, but nothing worked. “She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet of instead of getting better, she grew worse” (Mark 5:26).
      
I wonder—Was she beyond desperation, past the point of caring? Had she surrendered to her illness, counting the days until it would finally siphon her last ounce of energy, her last breath? Only then she would have relief.
      
But then she heard something that stirred up a hope she thought long dead: Jesus of Nazareth was passing through—the man whose reputation as a miracle worker was spreading through the country like a wildfire through the withered wasteland: how He’d healed the leper and the man with the shriveled hand, how he’d driven thousands of demons from the crazy man that lived in Gadarene tombs. Why, word had it He'd even calmed a storm at sea with only a few words! Surely He could help her.
      
She knew she wasn’t allowed in public in her condition, but maybe, just maybe . . . She wrapped her mantle around her face and stepped out the door.
      
When she saw the crowds swarming around Him, she despaired. She didn’t have a chance. But something in her emboldened her to push through the throng. She was almost to Him when she heard Jairus’s voice: “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so she will be healed and live.”
      
She knew the little girl—she was only 12. And here she was, way past her prime. Better to let Him go to the girl and not take the time to bother with an old woman. Besides, Jairus was one of the higher ups in the local synagogue, and who was she? A nobody. She turned to leave, but the swarming crowd pushed her closer to Jesus—close enough to touch Him. Hope flared.
       
If I just touch His clothes . . .  
    
She reached out. Her fingertips brushed the hem of His garment. Suddenly she felt whole. Healthy. Strong. Healed.
      
Jesus stopped abruptly and looked around. “Who touched Me?”
      
In the midst of a jostling crowd, He knew. Terror seized her. Would He be angry? Would her illness return?
      
Trembling, she fell at His feet and confessed. Love, not condemnation, poured from His eyes.
      
“Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
      
Later she heard that He’d brought Jairus’s daughter back from the dead.
      
Sometimes I wish that Jesus still walked this earth so I, too, can reach out and touch the hem of His garment.  And then I remember—He does: “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20)—and I can: “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know” (Jeremiah 33:3).      
      
In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation. (Ps. 5:3). Amen.
              
Feeling God doesn’t care about you? Read Psalm 139.

Special-Tea: Read Mark 5:25-34

Finding the well

Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest. - Mark 6:31 (NIV)
      
      
It took me two days into the new school year to realize I no longer had the energy for the job I loved. I left that Friday overwhelmed, exhausted, and frustrated. Teaching is my passion, but I also love to write, mentor and teach writers, and speak. Throw into the mix church responsibilities, family, and health issues, and you get one burned out soon-to-be senior citizen.
      
But until that Friday, I refused to admit I had too much on my plate. After neck surgery, I’d rested all summer, following the doctor’s orders. But as soon as the cervical collar came off, I jumped full tilt into a busy schedule. My body protested.
      
In her book, Meet Me at the Well, Virelle Kidder tells of a time she, too, was trying to do too much: “I only half listened to friends who cautioned me about overload, overwork, too much stress and responsibility. That’s another name for pride.”
      
The decision wasn’t easy, but it was clear. I resigned from teaching.
      
In the days that followed, I realized I was exhausted in body, mind and spirit.

“Body, mind, and spirit are one complete package,” Virelle writes. “When one part suffers, the whole person suffers.”
      
Jesus called His weary disciples aside from a busy ministry schedule to “come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest” (Mark 6:31). The King James Version words that verse this way: “Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest awhile.” Modern day translation: If you don’t come apart from the maddening rush of life, you’ll just plain come apart! I almost did.
      
Jesus calls us to serve, but not to wear ourselves out with more than He’s called us to do. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).
      
I have to be careful, though. Too many times streamlining my schedule has been like digging a hole in the sand—the more I scoop out, the more falls right back in. I have to stick with what God wants me to do and say no to everything else.
      
Friday was my last day teaching school. A good portion of this next week will be spent in time alone with God, watering my dried up spirit. I’ll also give myself permission to rest my weary body. Only when my spirit is revived and my body is rested up, can my mind be renewed.
      
Jesus invites us: “Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life” (Revelation 22:17).
      
“I was beyond thirsty,” Virelle concludes. “I was parched. Lifeless, dry as a bone. But not anymore. I found the well.”
      
How about you? Have you found The Well?
      
   
Give me the wisdom, dear Lord, to know what You want me to do—nothing less, nothing more. Amen.
 

Virelle Kidder will be the featured speaker at the 2011 Punxsutawney Christian Women’s Conference, “Meet Me at the Well,” on Saturday, Oct. 1 at the Punxsutawney First Church of God. For more information, email me at punxsycwc@gmail.com or visit the conference blog at http://punxsycwc.blogspot.com

In harmony

Under his direction, the whole body is fitted together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love. – Eph. 4:16 (NLT)

     
When I first joined the marching band in high school, I was still learning how to play the clarinet. For the most part, I could read music, as I’d been playing piano since I was in elementary school. But I wasn’t a good sight reader and had to work hard, counting out every note in every measure, to play the piece correctly.
     
Since I was a beginner, the director put me in the third section. The best players were assigned to the first section, while the least accomplished ones played what we called “third clarinet.”
     
Now, playing third clarinet meant my part generally was not the melody, which I would easily recognize if I knew the song. Then it would have been easy to figure out. No, third clarinets played harmony, an accompaniment with sometimes off-beat, syncopated notes that didn’t sound like anything I recognized.
     
That’s the way it was for the entire band. Usually only one section played the melody. The rest played different accompaniment parts that, when put together, if we were in tune with each other and following the director’s timing, turned out to be a beautiful song. Diversity, when working properly, created unity.
     
That’s the way it is with the church. God, the composer and director, has given each member a different part to play. Only a few have the obvious parts, the melody. The rest have parts that accompany the melody, adding to it, expanding it, supporting it, making it more effective.
     
But all parts are interdependent. If I were to play my third clarinet part alone, listeners would have no clue what I was playing. And I had to play the notes I was given. It wouldn’t do to be a maverick and play what I felt like playing. Even though you can’t hear the individual parts when everyone is playing what they’re supposed to be playing and following the director, just let one person hit a wrong note, be out of tune or get off time, and the whole song was discordant. But I was part of a whole, and if every part did its job well, the result was something beautiful and effective.
     
God has given us each different gifts to use to build up His church. St. Paul listed them in his letters to the believers in Corinth and Rome: serving, teaching, encouraging, giving, administering, showing mercy, exhorting, comforting. Once we discover our gift, it is our responsibility to develop it so that it can be used in His service, for His purpose. It wouldn’t do for me to show up to band practice or a performance unpracticed and unprepared. I had to work at my part to get it right so that it would blend with the rest.
     
Sometimes we feel as though we’re off beat and out of step, but if we’re following His direction and His timing, our efforts will blend into the whole, creating the unified, harmonious, beautiful song of God’s love. 
       
   
Dear God, help me to follow Your direction and timing. Help me to play the notes You have given me. Amen.

Special-Tea: Read 1 Corinthians 12: 12-31; Romans 12:4-8

Meet Me at the Well

Have you tried to be all things to everyone, only to be left feeling dried up?

Then MEET ME AT THE WELL,

the 2011 Punxsutawney Christian Women's Conference,
Sept. 30 & Oct. 1
at the Punxsutawney First Church of God.

Register by Sept. 15 for a $5 discount on your registration fee.

Download a registration form by clicking here.

Click here for more information.