Retreats Are the Best...and Worst
Yesterday I had the priviledge of being able to watch a fair number of my students take part in our Fall Retreat, "Hello My Name Is...": A Retreat on our Identity in Christ. For the first time, the Campus Ministries from Plymouth, UNH, and Keene came together for a joint retreat and boy, was it worth it!
We gathered.
We ate a lot of food (did you expect anything different from a gathering of college students?).
We worshipped.
We praised.
We learned.
We also prayed and played games and listened to a talk from the esteemed Mae Edwards called "Who Are You?". We Prayer Labyrinth-ed (if I can make that into a term) and Quiet Time-d and talked about what our superpower would be if we could have one. In short, it was a--shall we say--diverse day.
That's why retreats are the best...and also the worst. They're the best because they're fun, they're a chance to get away, they bring us out of our element and therefore closer to the Truth. But they're also the worst. They force us to be vulnerable. They make us cry (sometimes ugly cry). They bring to our attention things that are uncomfortable, things that need to be healed or changed or gotten rid of.
And all those things are okay too. The best, the worst, everything in the middle--much as every part of a body and every part of the Body are necessary, every part of your experience and emotions from an event like that is also necessary. Take your time with it. Allow for silence. Allow for healing. If you need to talk, I'm here. Cause I know that sometimes those feels post-retreat are the worst...but they can turn out to really be the best.
