Spring Cleanup

This weekend I went with 90 other women to the Eden Resort in Lancaster, PA for our church's women's retreat. The theme was Spring CleanUp and dealt with Psalm 51 - David's cry of repentance.

The food was delicious, the service was wonderful, the fellowship with other women was fun, and we were wonderfully challenged by our speaker, Lidia. She is incredibly gifted in communicating God's truth. One tidbit she shared was the difference between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow (over sin):

Godly Sorrow:

1. I take responsibility for my sin.

2. I feel deep pain and grief over my sin.

3. I purpose in God's strength and grace to not do the same thing again.

4. I am overwhelmed at the discovery of my inward sin (heart).

5. A deep feeling of wrong doing and sin against a holy God.

6. A heart and mind set on things above

Worldly sorrow:

1. I do not take responsibility for my sin.

2. I take my sin lightly.

3. I temporarily feel badly, but eventually just return to the same attitudes and behavior.

4. I only regret the personal consequences of my sin.

5. A feeling of sorrow because I've been found out or created a mess for myself

6. A heart and mind set on self

We were challenged that if we truly repent of our sin, we will not go back to it.

She also spent quite a bit of time talking about the holiness of God, because it will be hard to feel repentant of our sin if we don't understand that God is holy. Did you ever notice that in Isaiah 6:3, Isaiah describes God as holy, holy, holy? No other attribute of God's is ever mentioned 3 times in a row. God is not described as love, love, love or grace, grace, grace or mercy, mercy, mercy or faithful, faithful, faithful. But His holiness describes more than any other attribute who he is. His love is a holy love, His grace is a holy grace, His mercy is a holy mercy, etc. His holiness sets Him apart, no one else is holy. He is the only one, unique in holiness - which makes His sacrifice so much more meaningful because a holy God actually took our sin upon Himself. 2 Corinthians 5:21 ~ God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. What a God!

We had some free time on Saturday afternoon, but it turned out a couple of friends and I spent most of the afternoon driving around the countryside trying to find what we were looking for. At one point, we stopped along the side of the road, looking at our map, and a Mennonite man came over to give us directions. That was helpful because we certainly didn't know where we were or where we were going. One of the things I was looking for was the Petite Sophisticate outlet. When we finally found where it was supposed to be, there was a Lane Bryant (for big sizes) store there. So I went in to ask about P.S. and they said the store had closed 3 weeks ago. Well, we didn't really accomplish much on that excursion except to pile up some silly memories!

I didn't get much sleep over the weekend. I think I got to bed around midnight Friday and Saturday nights. And that's extremely late for me - I'm used to heading toward bed around 9:00-9:30 pm each night. Needless to say, I was pretty tired today.

We are welcoming Beth Fuller to our upstairs apartment this evening. She is a missionary to Papau New Guinea and will be here at our church until the end of May. She is a very lively and interesting young lady and it will be fun to have her here. As an example of her adventurous spirit, she wrote in one of her newsletters that she tasted a plate of grubs. She was really happy to do so, because she had been wanting to for a while. Ewwww - yuch! Well, we have plenty of grubs in our yard, so she can help herself to all that the moles and robins don't get! She had mentioned that she wants to cook us a meal while she is here, but I hope she does American food! (I'll be paying close attention!)