What an amazing weekend I had at the Existence Church Women’s Retreat! So much good time in community with some wonderful ladies, a phenomenal speaker, powerful worship, and just an all-around great experience.

I won’t share too much, but one of my favorite parts of the weekend was an exercise we did during our Saturday evening session. We were asked to send a letter to our future self with a prayer of what we wanted our life to look like in the near future. My first thought was, “Meh…things are good right now, so I don’t really have that much to say.” However, as soon as I started writing, the words just started pouring out. In fact, I’m pretty sure I was the very last person to finish my letter…

And what it showed me was how disillusioned I can sometimes be about my life and the struggles that I deal with. On the surface, things seem pretty OK, so I tend to just smile and go about my business, but once I started peeling back the layers, I realized that there are so many burdens that I carry with me every single day. And, to be honest, the thing that I want more than anything else is freedom from the weight of those burdens. Freedom from anxiety, freedom from depression, freedom from anger, freedom from bitterness, freedom from resentment, freedom from fear…Freedom to trust God enough to let Him carry those burdens for me.

It was scary writing those things down on paper because it forced me to not only acknowledge the anchors in my life, but also to finally surrender them to God. You see, I don’t like praying bold prayers for fear that they won’t come to pass, so I often neglect to ask God for the things I want most. The way I see it, if I never ask to begin with, then I never have to deal with the uncertainty or disappointment of the outcome. But aren’t we supposed to pray bold prayers? Isn’t that what faith is all about? The mere fact that I was finally able to give voice to those prayers shows me that God’s already moving in me.

Admittedly, I’m nervous for the day when I finally receive my letter in the mail and am able to assess  if and how those prayers are answered, but right now I’m choosing to lean into His promise in Matthew 7:7. “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

Thank you for reading and I hope you have a wonderful evening.