Singing in His Name: Delight North Carolina Retreat

Hi everyone,
So I went to a retreat through the Delight group for young women pursuing God through the creative arts. Here are a few young ladies photos and photography webpages. So have a look at their work for sure and enjoy the photos.

The above photo is a picture of every single one of us all together who attended the retreat. There were 16 gals in all and we had a blast. Can't you tell!? ;) Definitely check out the Gorgeous Erin's webpage.

This photo was taken by the lovely Megan over at Megan Justine Photography.

Friday evening, I arrived in North Carolina at the guest home with two other lovely gals from my area. I was blown away by the non superficial atmosphere of the whole retreat. Each gal there was real, down to earth, pursuing Christ, and proud of it. :) The moment I hopped out of the car, a whole group of gals came running out of the beautiful green house excited we had arrived with open arms. Embracing the three of us, I could tell there was something different about this retreat from any other I have attended. The difference was it was not a judgmental or negative environment. But not only that, each gal had come not knowing if she would "fit in" per say or be accepted by the other gals who were coming.

This photo was taken by the hilarious and gorgeous Meredith Sledge.

And guess what? We all accepted each other because Christ the Lord accepts us with opens arms even when we mess up. He picks us up every time we fall and whispers, " My maid servant, I forgive you and I will carry you the rest of the journey."

So as I was embraced with open arms, souls communing with other souls, and much laughter that Friday evening I was blown away by Gods Magnificent love for everyone once again.

After being awake from 6:30 am Friday until 2am Saturday night after much anticipation, laughter, tears, long conversations, and good food my head hit the pillow wondering what God had in store a few hours later.

I woke up at 6:45am, yep you read that right 6:45am. My body naturally wakes up early because I had to retrain it this year to start doing that. Its really been a blessing for me to get up early and be able to start my day earlier. I naturally get more done in the mornings since I am naturally a morning person. But I realized that I needed more rest since I had only gotten 5 or so hours of sleep. So I spent some time with God, got some breakfast, drank some tea, and pondered what God had done. He had brought me to this house full of souls who also love creating for God. I was really astounded as I had told Erin the night before. Right now in this moment, I am still amazed at how God has changed my life because of my time with Him and 15 other creative minds for a weekend.

So eventually, a few gals got up one by one and around 9:30 I think everyone was awake and we had our waffles, tea, and coffee, and other goodies. But the thing that was better than all the lovely food for me was the amazing fellowship. We all had never met before in person, but we all felt like sisters already.

As a gal who grew up with only one sister and no other siblings I always admired large families, or even families with 3 kids instead of just 2. So being with lots of people has always been fun for me and I feed off of it and get inspiration and a sort of high from being around others. But doing some time with God for 2 hours after breakfast made me realize if I just had God and me I would be ok. I do not need people to breathe, I do not need people in order to function, all I need is Jesus. I realized that and now I am content even being alone in regards to people, but just being with God. Its so freeing and I feel so joyful now knowing I would be ok without anybody else. But a few months ago I was not there, but now by Gods amazing and I mean amazing grace I can function with just Him and me if I had to. He is my all in all! We sang the song " You are My All In All" one of the evenings there and it was amazing. I could sing those words and mean it! God is my all in all, no one else is. I myself am not my everything, God is now.

We did our 2 hours of God time and then ate lunch together. Then we did a group photo of everyone, which you saw above after everyone had some more time to get ready and chat some more and oh did I say chat some more. ;)

Check out the Stellar and beautiful Elizabeth's lovely photography too!

I stayed up till 2 am again after we had some time to share with each other all together as once what God was doing in ours lives. We also prayed for any gals who asked for it then and there. We also watched a movie for the gals interested, while some edited photos, some drew, some of us including me sang along with the movie, and some created or talked. It was oh so refreshing to be around other gals who also creative things on a whim and it was not a thing on my list, but I did it anyway. I do so many things on the fly these days, such as writing a song, writing a letter, singing, playing the piano, or drawing. So it was nice to get to know others who also are creative like that too.