A Weekend for All Ages

I had a great weekend! It truly was a weekend for all ages and I was blessed beyond measure!!

I had the wonderful honor, privilege, and responsibility to help in the Youth Girls Retreat at our church on Friday night. Our really great friends, Jeron and Kristine, are the Youth Ministers at our church. Kristine did an outstanding job putting this retreat together. The theme was sexual purity and the retreat was titled "i promise." Through a video series several topics were covered from std's, virginity, as well as emotional, physical, and spiritual applications of purity.Kristine had asked if I would lead a small group discussion after the girls watched some videos. I was going to have some of the 8th grade girls. I was so nervous and prayed for a week over the retreat, my words, and my group. Some of these questions were deep and made me a little nervous to discuss with the girls. But I understood the need for purity to be addressed to our young people. So although I was nervous, I welcomed the opportunity to be stretched and serve these young girls. I want to do it again!!!! They split up the 8th grade and I had 5 girls.These girls were precious, a little quiet in the first session but they opened up in the second session together. It was freezing cold in our room so we cuddled with blankets!!! Thankfully one of the girls was the daughter of a couple in our Sunday School class so that gave us some familiarity.

For the past 2 years now, Jeron's mom goes with me to the retreat. I love Carla. She could be my mom. She has often played the role of a mom and friend both!! Last year I left her house at 7:00 am the next morning. We had talked the night away literally. We never went to bed until 7:30 when I drove back to my house. So this year we were determined we would get in bed earlier this year!!! I took Carla home around 1:00 am and we talked until 3:00 am. When I went to start the car, my car wouldn't start!!!!!! I had to call Bryan at 3:30 to come get me and move our car. After we moved the car, Carla fell hard into some mud and hit her head and face and had mud all over her!! She was inches away from a concrete sidewalk when she came down on her head. We are so thankful she was not hurt terribly bad. But afterwards all 3 of us laughed so hard at the event. I was rolling!!!! Carla said she went to bed shaking because she couldn't stop laughing!!! I told her I so had to blog about this and post these pictures!!!My car is fixed. Luckily it was only my battery. It just went out....just like that. I had saved my receipt from the old battery so we saved us $50 bucks!!!!

Then, on Sunday Bryan and I had extended session duty at church. It was so much fun. Here is a picture of my little boy trying to figure out the battery operated touch drum.

We had a small group of kidos yesterday. They were outstanding!!! All of them played so well and laughed, laughed, and laughed some more.The little boy in the striped shirt gave me such a fragrant gift via his diaper!!!! But who cares!! He was cute and all of them let me love on them. No one cried one time!! Luckily I had planned ahead and wore pants and Bryan wore jeans so we just crawled around the floor and rolled around with them. We were blessed!!!!

I was just rewarded so much this weekend from non-material things! It was so neat to look back on the weekend and realize I had spent time and was blessed by someone from infancy, to youth, to a mother!!