Donegal Staff Retreat
I went to the camp staff retreat this weekend so I thought I would put up a couple of thoughts and a couple of pictures... you might not really be all that interested in the thoughts, so perhaps you should just browse through the pictures.Thoughts...The retreat was focused on Grace this weekend. For those of you familiar with the word, but not really with the meaning... in laymens terms it means unmerited forgiveness. Its like you do something bad to me, and I forgive you completely even though its against our culture and mindset to do so. Grace is something that is always mentioned within the pretext of God's forgiveness and salvation... but for us, its a hard thing to give, a hard thing to recieve, and a hard thing to really understand.
I have been shown a lot of grace in '05. Thank you, sweetheart.
So the retreat focused on that and we talked about the nature of grace and how hard it is to give it... there were a couple of things that struck me yesterday, and i had some really good conversation with Jon about it on the ride home.
1. Grace is really hard to give. Part of grace, I think, is forgetting whatever happened. So if you show someone grace, you forgive them so completely that its almost as if it never happened
2. Grace is really hard to recieve. Personally, I like to think im good at showing grace... but when someone gives it to me, its really hard for me to forgive myself. Ethan has shown me so much grace and love, and its so difficult for me to let it go. I let it go yesterday. Its almost a mockery to the grace and forgiveness someone gives you if you throw it back in their face saying its not good enough, that you are too horrible, too unlovable, too terrible... well yes, you are, suck it up and deal. Grace is unmerited. No, you DONT deserve it, thats what makes it grace.... So just accept that you are a buttmunchie and move on... the person showing you grace has. They love you for who you are, dont tell them that their love and grace is insufficient.
3. Grace is complete entwined with salvation... Jon and I talked a lot on the way home whether or not salvation is something you have to ask for, or something that is a finished work.... we come from different angles, we have different reasons to think what we do.... but the bottom line, I suppose, is that its pure grace, its undeserved.
So I dont know, the retreat was really awesome... camp always makes me happy.... Amy, Cindy, Steph, Jess, Jess, Lora, Devon, Dave, Tony, Jon, and Noah were there... it was awesome to see them... here are some pictures of the day, if you werent so interested in the commentary...
And apparently the picture uploader thing isnt working, so no pictures today... sorry, perhaps another day.
I went to the camp staff retreat this weekend so I thought I would put up a couple of thoughts and a couple of pictures... you might not really be all that interested in the thoughts, so perhaps you should just browse through the pictures.Thoughts...The retreat was focused on Grace this weekend. For those of you familiar with the word, but not really with the meaning... in laymens terms it means unmerited forgiveness. Its like you do something bad to me, and I forgive you completely even though its against our culture and mindset to do so. Grace is something that is always mentioned within the pretext of God's forgiveness and salvation... but for us, its a hard thing to give, a hard thing to recieve, and a hard thing to really understand.
I have been shown a lot of grace in '05. Thank you, sweetheart.
So the retreat focused on that and we talked about the nature of grace and how hard it is to give it... there were a couple of things that struck me yesterday, and i had some really good conversation with Jon about it on the ride home.
1. Grace is really hard to give. Part of grace, I think, is forgetting whatever happened. So if you show someone grace, you forgive them so completely that its almost as if it never happened
2. Grace is really hard to recieve. Personally, I like to think im good at showing grace... but when someone gives it to me, its really hard for me to forgive myself. Ethan has shown me so much grace and love, and its so difficult for me to let it go. I let it go yesterday. Its almost a mockery to the grace and forgiveness someone gives you if you throw it back in their face saying its not good enough, that you are too horrible, too unlovable, too terrible... well yes, you are, suck it up and deal. Grace is unmerited. No, you DONT deserve it, thats what makes it grace.... So just accept that you are a buttmunchie and move on... the person showing you grace has. They love you for who you are, dont tell them that their love and grace is insufficient.
3. Grace is complete entwined with salvation... Jon and I talked a lot on the way home whether or not salvation is something you have to ask for, or something that is a finished work.... we come from different angles, we have different reasons to think what we do.... but the bottom line, I suppose, is that its pure grace, its undeserved.
So I dont know, the retreat was really awesome... camp always makes me happy.... Amy, Cindy, Steph, Jess, Jess, Lora, Devon, Dave, Tony, Jon, and Noah were there... it was awesome to see them... here are some pictures of the day, if you werent so interested in the commentary...
And apparently the picture uploader thing isnt working, so no pictures today... sorry, perhaps another day.
posted by FireWithin at 5:00 PM
1 Comments:
very awesome. :)
Thanks for the reminder. *hugs*
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