WR '09

I’m home. It’s the strangest feeling- walking back through these front doors again. No more mountains. No more hills. No more endless starry nights.

This whole experience has truly been very humbling. In short, winter retreat for me has been a much needed reminder/eye-opener. I’m not exactly sure what I plan to do from this point on, but I do know that I will definitely try harder to reflect a more Christian-like life.

Hearing those raw, open-hearted confessions last night, I was really moved and touched by the honesty and courage of everyone who went up. Listening to some of my closest friends stand up at that mike and share their most difficult pasts and experiences, I felt like God was really trying to reach out.

I don’t know if it’s that I just haven’t been listening or if it’s that I just haven’t been trying hard enough. But for a long while now I’ve been holding up this “guard” and nothing has been able to break it down. It’s silly in all honesty- the effort I’ve put into avoiding new relationships. What a waste of precious energy right? I guess the reasoning for my thinking was, that if I avoided new relationships I would avoid the drama- the deception, the misleading motives. And in all honesty, it wasn’t THAT hard, cause all I needed was excuses like “I’m busy or ”I have way too much stuff to do.” I mean, the thing was though- while these excuses seemed relatively reasonable, they were more or less distractions to prevent people from knowing the real issue.

I guess that was and is my secret? That I have alot of fear of getting attached to people.

Nevertheless, I think it’s really amazing how God works. Having not been to one of these winter retreats I didn’t really know what to expect. At first I don’t think I was very receptive to the message, but after being surrounded by all the fellowship and youth group memebers I had’t seen for such a long time, it made me realize how much I missed and wanted this love again.

I don’t think anybody really “wants” to be independent all the time. I know I don’t. No matter how much I say it- I don’t want to be like that.

I’m trying to move past those “unfortunate experiences.”

I think, vulnerabilty is what makes us human. It makes us feel. It makes us understand. And I think that’s what I got most out of this winter retreat- that I need to reach out of my comfort zone again.

I suppose there’s always going to be people criticizing you, expecting you to be a certain way. But, I guess if Jesus stopped for every person who criticized him we wouldn’t have been saved right? (:

Overall, just a very good experience!
Many wonderful people. And I’ll write more about this later.

Sunshine mail is awesome. Haha.