Wednesday, October 25, 2017

I'm praying there's no video footage of my performance

Three days later I'm here to report that I survived the ladies retreat. Praise the Lord for He continues to work miracles. 

I drove up with two girls from church whose children are friends of Annabelle's from Sunday school. They're sisters in law and best friends who gave me the scoop on who's who and what's what. I always love hearing the scoop. We got there right as dinner was starting and I felt so awkward. I didn't know where to stand or what to do. Most of the ladies there have been going to this church for years and I was the new kid on the block but they welcomed me in.

As a general rule I don't enjoy ice breaker games that involve some kind of performance. The younger half of the planning committee decided we should do a lip sync competition. NO THANK YOU. Unfortunately it was mandatory participation. I was in a group with a very outgoing girl which I thought would be our ticket to winning. I don't enjoying performing but I am competitive so I wanted to win. She picked a song from Mulan because "it's energetic and exciting and we can really get into it." Turns out she and one other girl were the only ones who got into it. Three of us didn't know the song so we stood there looking like idiots. Someone grabbed sticks for us to use as props which we used to fake fight with each other. It was a mess. There were five teams competing and we got honorable mention aka last place.

A lady spoke about unity and shared some good tidbits which I immediately butchered when I tried to share them with Christopher. Twice on Saturday we formed groups and prayed aloud. NEED I MENTION AGAIN MY DISLIKE OF PRAYING IN A GROUP. About forty women were in attendance and by my quick calculations, 98% were crying. Thank goodness there weren't any men in attendance. A room full of crying women is every man's nightmare. The second time we gathered for prayer it took our group 8 minutes (I timed it) to decide how to pray. Would we pray for the person to our right? To our left? Were we praying for the women at the retreat or whatever we felt led to pray for? Should one person pray for all of us? Should those who don't like praying aloud be allowed to skip this portion of the weekend? Did everyone find out that Amy's cat was hit by a car? Is Amy going to get a replacement cat? Should we pray for Amy about the passing of Ricky? Should every other person pray? Should we start praying since the other groups are already done? Again, it was a man's nightmare. 

We made crafts, played games until late into the night and went zip lining. I'm glad I worked up the courage to go because I did enjoy it, but I was peopled out by the time I got home. The only people I need are the two who live in my house. 

3 comments:

Jen said...

I'm glad you went but I totally get being peopled out at the end of it. Some days I can only muster being around people for about an hour haha.

Angi said...

I think I would have offed myself before day 1 even ended. Kudos to you for surviving the entire weekend.

Michelle said...

The praying is cracking me up! I’ve lived that saga so many times.