Amadeo Women's Retreat

This was such a wonderful weekend. I too often don't get enough "adult time" with Christians. It was so great to spend some quality time with the women and be encouraged. Many people received prayer and were healed. The most interesting was Susan's pain that started in her lower back, went to the front of her hip, to her thigh, to her heel of her foot and then she stomped it out of her foot as Mandy laid hands on her foot. It was the craziest thing to see it go throughout her body but then, it finally left.

The prayer walk on Saturday night was amazing. It was set up in 11 stations.

1 - Mandy prayed for us as we entered.
2 - Names of God - it named all the different names of our 3 parts of our God - Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. We were supposed to pray and ask God to be those things and to add "my" before them.
3 - Worry Station - we put books with different types of worry on them in a backpack so we could feel the weight of it. Then, we prayed for them as we took them out and gave them over to God.
4 - Name that Sin - We then got to sit through and name all of our sins that we struggled with, ask for forgiveness, and ask for the very thing we need to overcome that struggle.
5 - Then, we came to a station that we were able to read the story of when Jesus was anointed with expensive perfume before His death. We left that station with a cotton ball to remind us of this extravagant love.
6 - Nails - From there, we moved to the nail station... Now this is one that really hit me hard. I was reminded of how strong nails are and then how strong God had to make our skin for the nails not to go through it for Jesus to stay up on the cross. The way that God made our hands is amazing. There are so many bones, and they are just so strong... He didn't have to make our hands this strong, but He had to, because He had plans of going on the cross from the very beginning.
7 - Then, we went to a station where we were reminded of how the disciples couldn't even pray for an hour when Jesus had asked them to. There was also a poem there that Sarah G. from VCC wrote. It was a beautiful illustration of how there is nothing we could do to prevent the death of Jesus.
8 - The next station is where we were able to release our sins. We got to put the papers in from the worry and "name your sin" stations into the blue water. It's very freeing to let go of them. Jen said that when she got them at the end of the night, all of the ink was smeared and gone - so it was all illegible. What a powerful demonstration of the forgiveness of sins.
9 - From there, we got to have some quiet time. We just sat there and got to pray and read the bible as we felt lead.
10- The next station is the anointing station. We anointed our eyes, mouth, hands, nose, ears, feet, and knees. I admit it was kind of weird to anoint my knees and even my nose, but I did it. I was reminded of when I was in college and how we had to read a book on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, pray to receive 3 of them, and then write a paper on it. Well, when I read that book, I prayed and asked God for each of the gifts. I figure, hey, why not? It's not like any of the gifts are bad. Also, why would I want to miss out on God's anointing or will just because I never asked for it. Well, I noticed that I kept that same mentality at this station. I had so much anointing oil on my lips it felt like I had lipstick on. I could rub them together like I would if I had lipstick on. Yet, I wanted to jump in and receive from the Lord.
11- The last station was communion. What a beautiful way to end it. So many times it can get to be ritualistic, but that was not the case this night.


This retreat was a blessing, and I was so blessed to be able to spend time with such amazing women and especially with out beyond amazing Lord.