I really don't have any words to express my Tres Dias weekend. I know this doesn't come as a surprise to anyone who has experienced it. There is the perception that the cloistered retreat is a highly guarded secret... not to be shared with anyone who has never been. It isn't that it's secretive. It's because if you knew beforehand all of the beautiful surprises you were going to experience, you would miss out on some of the blessings of those experiences. It is a life changing weekend....for me, for Boyce, for our children.
I will, however, discuss my accomodations. We got in late Thursday night, and were lead to our room by our dorm monitor (for lack of a better description). It was a small, dingy room with 5 sets of bunkbeds, one closet with one toilet in it, a half closet with a small drinking fountain type device attached to the wall called a "shower", and one sink with a tiny mirror that must have fallen out of some woman's compact, above the sink. There were 6 women sharing this room...SIX. Six women who didn't know each other from Adam, some of whom weren't overly excited about being there (I won't mention names). Then our dorm monitor told us that when we were awakened, we would have 30 minutes to spend leisurely getting ready for the day. Let's see....6 women divided by 30 minutes. Five minutes to brush my teeth (my electric toothbrush takes 2 minutes alone), shower, dress, dry my hair, flat iron my hair, and put my makeup on. I quietly told her that it takes me at least 45 minutes to get ready in an actual bathroom, so how was this going to work?? She apologized and said she would try to find us another bathroom where some of us could go and get ready in the morning (most other rooms had one sink, shower, and toilet per 2 people...AND they had been remodeled). I said (in what may have been a slightly whiny voice) "No, it's just hard". She gently replied "I know it's hard". I don't think I slept at all that night. Friday was an exhausting day, mentally and physically. We weren't allowed to have watches, and there were no clocks, so you never knew what time it was. I'm not sure what time it was when we finally went to bed, but I was determined to get some sleep. I woke up shortly after falling asleep to the sound of voices, and a horrible smell. I couldn't believe it was time to get up already. I was relieved when I found out that it actually wasn't time to get up. It was just a living, breathing skunk that had somehow found it's way into our room, and under my roommate's bunk. I could go on and on...about how the skunk finally walked out of our room, about how the toilet leaked all over the floor, the sink backed up that same morning, and other fun things that happen at
C A M P, but I won't. We are made in God's image, and I've been told I have a good sense of humour. I obviously got that trait from my heavenly father (and my earthly father too). He knows how I feel about roughing it. He knows that it's kept me from experiencing other events in my life because I didn't want to be physically uncomfortable. And he knew that I was going to have to choose to overcome that, to decide that nothing, not even horrible living quarters, was going to keep me from experiencing God's love....God's incredible grace....that he poured out on me all weekend long. I made up my mind....and I had the most love filled, grace filled, three days in my life.
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