This past weekend we had our women's retreat. About 300 women head up to the mountains and spend the weekend together, eating, worshipping, hearing some talks, and just hanging out. This year the speaker was Jackie Roese and she talked about the Holy Spirit. As we went through the weekend I began to realize that although I get the idea of God being in me, I really don't get the idea of God being IN ME.
Let me just confess right here, I can be pretty self-absorbed. I spend way too much time pondering what I am thinking about or how I feel or what I think about how I am feeling, or how what you are feeling impacts me or makes me feel; you get the gist. As we talked more about the Holy Spirit I began to think about how it is kind of pathetic how weak I act and feel much of the time when I have the power of God in me.
If you have read any of my prior posts you know I have been dealing with some self-hate lately, well really not lately more accurately it seems to be just part of who I am. I know this stuff in my head does nothing good, but try as I might I can't seem to kick it. Saturday, we had some free time so I decided to go for a walk. None of my cabin mates wanted to go, and I could not find anyone else I knew to go with me so I went by myself. So, the walk started with a little pity party for myself as I passed all the other groups of women walking in their twos or threes, then I realized, oh yeah I'm not alone we've been talking about this Holy Spirit all weekend maybe I should talk to God (being on a spiritual retreat and all). So I started pouring out my heart, silently so as not to look like a crazy woman, just telling God how tired I am of feeling like this but how I can't seem to stop it because I know the things I think of myself are accurate. After I went on an on for a while I stopped and just tried to listen.
I know this notion of hearing God can seem pretty bizarre and I do not claim to hear an audible voice, it is more like the sound of my own voice inside my head, only kinder, and wiser. I don't know how it works for anyone else but this is how I usually "hear" from God. So, when I stopped and listened, what I heard God saying to me was: "You know Pattie, I really wish you would just stop being so hard on yourself. I can't do this for you, you just have to decide that you're not going to do that anymore and get on with the business of being who I made you to be." I thought about it, and I realized God was right. I think that sometimes I am waiting to "feel" a certain way, and God is more interested in my "being" a certain way. I want to stop feeling the dislike of myself, and it throws me into a spiral of self-hate. While it sounds way too simple, sometimes we just have to say no, I am not going to do that anymore. I don't know why, but for some reason it permeated my brain a little this time. Maybe it was because we were talking so much about how God already accepts us and loves us. He is not the one beating me up all the time. I do that.
God does give me a good old holy spriti kick in the butt every once in a while when I need it, and I did.
10 years ago
