This post talks about some hard subjects, so if that squicks you out then feel free to skip it.
This week, the men are away on their own men’s retreat, and the women here are all living it up having the squad room to ourselves.
We’re here having our own retreat made by a wonderful little organization called Beauty For Ashes. In fact, it’s still going on, but it’s been such a nice time so far that I wanted to write about it.
The first day, we were told to ask God, “What do I see you as? Who are you, to me?”
The thing is that we are not coming up with what we see God as. Many people say something like ‘provider’ or ‘Father’- and none of these are wrong, but this time, it’s God saying what you see him as.
If you’ve never asked him about that, I recommend you do, because it’s really interesting. The other part of this is to draw it out- even if it looks really bad, because nobody else is going to see it, just you and the Father.
So, I asked God, “What do I see you as? But you know I’m not good at drawing so… make it simple, if you can. I’m better with words.”
So He said to me, “Give me all the words you would use to describe me.”
There are so many. So I began down the list of adjectives I usually do not use unless it’s in reference to him.
Halfway through, He stopped me and said, “You see me as a poem.”
Wild, isn’t it? That everything I think of Him is… basically a psalm.
After a few more questions, we got to the really fun part.
“God, what game would You play with me right now?”
Here’s the thing– I absolutely love asking God the ‘meaningless’ questions because He gives such interesting answers. Once I asked him very early in the morning what He’d done so far today and He was like, “Oh, you know, I just made the sun rise.”
Like??? How??? Do you comprehend a God like that?? You can’t even respond because– nothing you could ever do will be that awesome.
But the best thing is this: I said to Him after I got over my bout of starstruckness, I told Him about my morning!! And He was so into it!! He cares about my mornings!! What!! He was just like, ‘forget the sunrise, I want to hear about you.’
What do you do with a God like that?
I have lots of stories like that, but back to the original one about asking God what kind of game He’d play with me.
I saw a hand of cards in my hands waiting to be played, and there was only one king and one queen. The cards were monotone- yes, black and red like normal playing cards, but the colors were subdued and hard to see unless you looked really hard.
But the king in my hand was the opposite.
It was blue and yellow and all shades of those two, moving on the card like it was alive. Very easy to see and pick out- and obviously very important.
The game itself ended up being Go Fish- for a number of reasons, the last of which I didn’t find out until recently.
The first reason is because I need to rely on God to give me the things I need.
The second is because I am practicing to be a fisher of men, like it says in Matthew 4:19.
The third is because I have to give God the things that I maybe don’t want to give him!
But I asked God why there was only one king, and why it was like that, and He said:
“I am the only king you need.”
(I was His queen!)
It was a King of Hearts card, if that makes this any sweeter.
Gosh, He’s so nice to me. He’s so romantic. I could go on forever about the qualities of God.
Anyway, fast forward through my hospital visit (I have an ear infection and now some antibiotics so it’s fine) and missing the second session with Beauty For Ashes, we get to… tonight.
Tonight was an interesting time. As I mentioned before, the guys have been away for the whole week, so it’s only been women since Monday-ish. And tonight was Squad Time, and my lovely leaders set us up an entire room.
Picture this:
You’ve been living in the woods for a month. No worldly comforts. The smells of home are gone and replaced with the smells of the earth. You sleep in a tent and only have water to drink.
But then!
Your leaders come to you and say, “Come upstairs, we have something for you.”
So you go upstairs. They take your bag and give you real, hot apple cider. They give you cookies.
You go into the room, having acquired snacks. Tea candles are lit around the border of the room and in the center lies a real Yankee candle promising the smells of fall- apples, cider, pumpkin, cinnamon.
It’s warm. You haven’t been warm like this for a month. It’s cozy- candles and fire are very limited here. But you have your favorite socks on and a blanket and a brand new hoodie.
You’re with your people. Your new family.
You are content.
Let me tell you how MUCH I love my leaders.
So we got to the activity- which was filling out a sort of survey. But not any normal survey; this one was anonymous and meant to be uplifting.
The name of the activity is Stand Up For Your Sisters. Once everyone had filled out the survey, they were collected, shuffled, and handed back out so that nobody knew which one belonged to which person.
Remember, it was all anonymous.
Then, one by one, each question was read out by our amazing squad mentor Kyndal Broome, whom I love dearly and would do anything for.
“Stand up for your sisters if you’ve ever been addicted to drugs.”
There are twenty-six of us. The point of the exercise was that every single person in that room represented someone else; if the paper had ‘yes’ circled for whatever question was asked, you would stand in place of whoever had filled out your paper.
For instance, if I had the paper of someone called Leah (we do not have a Leah on our squad), I would stand for her to show she was having problems with drugs, and the other people who also had problems with drugs could see they weren’t alone. But nobody, including me who had her paper, would know it was Leah that struggled with it.
I hope that makes sense.
This way, every single person in the room could see that they were not the only one struggling with anything. They were not alone.
Ten people stood, and sat down.
“Stand up for your sisters if you drink because of stress.”
More people stood for a moment, then sat down. The questions came and went like this- about eating disorders, abuse, sex, situations at home.
It was a powerful time.
But then came the question that I remember most clearly.
“Stand up for your sisters if you’ve ever considered suicide.”
Every single person in the room except for five people stood from their chairs and looked at each other.
There are twenty-six of us. What might have been if any one of us had gone through with it? What would be different? My squad might not exist– I might not have been here myself, or I might have been on a different route, or met different people, or made different people my family for the next nine months.
Everything here could have been so different. But… the Lord is faithful and has made it the way He has seen it will prosper. So I’m thankful for everyone that’s here, and I’m thankful I’m here too.
We are all broken. Something the Lord has reminded me of is that nobody is perfect except Him. On Earth, we cannot be perfect. We are weak and He is strong.
And that’s okay.
We are beautifully broken so that He can shine through us, making us stronger and more beautiful than ever before. And in Christ, we can stand together in our weaknesses.
