An Amazing Weekend

The retreat this weekend was absolutely amazing! God was definitely present there! It was so good to get to know the girls and form new friendships that I hope will continue to grow. The weekend was full of testimonies, food, prayer, and painting! I am so excited about what God is doing right now!

One of the things that I want for the college group at church is unity and closeness between the girls. I want to really get to know the girls deeper than surface level, not just know their names and majors, but know their hearts: their dreams, their struggles, their "story." This weekend did a great job of jump-starting that, and I just hope that it will reach outside this weekend; that all the girls from the retreat, including myself, will make an effort and take the initiative to really get to know other girls at church. I want closeness to develop so that we can be open with each other, encourage one another, challenge one another, and bare each others' burdens. My roommate did something awesome today to put this into action. Once we got back to the apartment, she asked me something that I was struggling with that she could pray for. We had such an awesome conversation just from that one simple question. I realized that is a question I need to ask more often. Instead of just asking a girl, "how are you" and then moving on, I should go deeper and also see if there is anything I can pray for them about. And I should make sure that if I ask, I follow through with praying for them and checking up on them.

I know that my blog is mostly where I write about my running, but I also want to write about other aspects of my life because running is not my life! I absolutely love running, and it is very important to me, but there is so much more to my life than running. It's odd, but cool, how God is changing my desires and priorities. The more I get to know Him and the closer I grow to Him, the more that things in this life lose their value. It is like the song that says, "Turn your eyes upon Jesus; look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace." Nothing in this world compares to the greatness of knowing Christ and living for Him.