Ladies' Advance

Well, I survived the ladies’ retreat. Or as Mrs. Appleby told us, ladies’ advance. It was a lot of fun, but also very tiring. I probably got about 3 hours sleep Friday night.

Mrs. Patti Appleby from FL and Mrs. Judy Andrews from MD were our speakers. They did a great job talking about the amazing race that we are in as Christians. They talked about amazing faith, amazing forgiveness, amazing freedom, amazing focus, and amazing finish. The lessons were based on Hebrews 12:1-4.

Amazing faith is needed because it took amazing faith for us to enter the race. We had to have faith in Jesus Christ and faith to believe that he died on the cross for our sins, was buried and rose again. Faith that his word is true and faith to take the step to ask Him to forgive us for sins and to come into our hearts. There have been and there will be hurdles (events), hindrances (people), and hurts (life) that will interfere with our race.

Amazing forgiveness is needed because Jesus first forgave us for our sins and second because we need to forgive other people for the problems and hurts that come into our lives. Forgiveness can be very difficult because we are human and it takes us awhile to get to that point especially when people have hurt us badly. We may never forget which is good because we may be able to use that time in our lives to help someone else in the future. But we need to forgive.

Amazing freedom is needed because when we are weighted down by burdens and sin, we can go to Jesus and He can take those burdens and sins and free us up from the weights that keep us from running more freely. Sometimes God calls upon us to get rid of things that may not be sin but cause us to stumble such as TV, shopping, reading material, computers or friends. These may take up too much time and energy that we need to run the race well.

Amazing focus is needed because we need to keep our eyes on Him. Looking back, down, left, or right can distract us and we may stumble. We need to always be looking forward and upward toward Him.

Amazing finish is needed because we need to finish well. We need to become like servants and serve those around us. Not for our own glory but for His. To do those jobs nobody ever sees and do them well.

Each area was important for us as Christian women to understand. The most important thing is to keep running the race and don’t stop. We have had veteran runners before us and we need to learn from them and then pass this information down to the younger women to encourage them and keep them in the race.

The workshop I did on marriage went pretty well. I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I would be. There were about 20 women at the workshop. I think that was a good number and not overwhelming. Mrs. Appleby and Mrs. Andrews were not too far away and they heard some of what I said and they were encouraging when we talked later on. I told them that they were the “A” speakers and I felt like a “B” speaker. I tried to watch them and learn as much as I could from them as they spoke. Overall, it was a very good weekend.