My 30-day Retreat Playlist
Hello everyone! Sr. Maria Angeline and I have emerged from our 30-day retreat silence and have hit the ground running. What an incredible experience! If you remember my post right before going into retreat (July), I spoke about letting Jesus be my DJ as I entered into deep silence for 30 days. As fear and worry started to rise in my heart, Jesus placed these words in my heart: “Let go my soul and trust in Him, the waves and wind still know His name,” (“It is Well” by Bethel Music). Well, I tried very hard to do just that, and God surpassed all of my expectations.
I’d like to share my 30-day retreat Top 6 with you…
“It is Well”- Bethel Music
“Oceans”- Hillsong United
“All of Me”- John Legend
“How He Loves”- David Crowder Band
“Say Something”- A Great Big World
“No Longer Slaves”- Bethel Music
Allow me to explain this odd conglomeration of songs:
1. “It is Well”- Let go my soul and trust in Him…
To my surprise, this was not a once and done event. I would let down my guard and begin to trust, and then Jesus would “start to poke around” in a spot in my heart where I was not ready to let Him in yet. In fear, I would put my guard right back up. Then I would look back on all those times that He ventured into a difficult spot and how he never lead me astray. More than never lead me astray, he lead me to great healing and fulfillment. With my human condition of intermittent amnesia, I had forgotten this. But once I remembered, I let my guard back down and let Jesus do his work.
2. “Oceans”- You called me out upon the water, the great unknown where feet may
fail…Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders…
Like I said, Jesus ventured into some pretty delicate places and challenged me to step out of my comfort zone, beyond what I thought any human was capable of. That’s just it...No human is capable of it, but HE is. In his love, He beckons us closer to Him, to get out of the boat and trust in him, to walk on water WITH Him. Lesson learned...Jesus is the DJ and the driver.
3. “All of Me”- All of me loves all of you…all your perfect imperfections…Give your all to
me. I’ll give my all to you…
Once again, this retreat was not about me. It was all about Jesus. I had to experience his perfect
love for me in all my woundedness for two reasons:
because He loves me and desires that I know it
I thought I understood how He loved, but I had to experience it myself to even get a glimpse, a hint of how to do the same for others.
Once I experienced his love for me, I was able to respond with vulnerability and a trust and let
him begin to heal the wounds and draw me closer to himself.
4. “How He Loves”- Oh, how He loves us.
When one experiences Christ’s love, you just want to skip through life and bask in it. You just
want to announce it to the whole world, hoping that everyone will someday experience his love.
5. “Say Something”- Say something, I’m giving up on you.
Then...you bump your head on the cross...some sort of roadblock to your perfect plan, and you
suddenly get amnesia. When God doesn’t answer quickly enough or in the way that YOU proposed, it’s easy to forget that glorious love that you experienced, and you’re tempted to doubt his love and his presence in your life. Life isn’t just skipping, and it isn’t just the cross. Our life is one that is centered around the cross AND the Resurrection. The two cannot be separated. When we feel that God is distant, we make an act of faith that He is here with us and trust that He is lovingly at work in our lives.
6. “No Longer Slaves”- I’m no longer a slave to fear. I am a child of God…. You split the
sea so I could walk right through it. My fears were drowned in
perfect love. You rescued me, and I will stand and sing, “I am a
child of God.”
This was the most surprising and most pivotal moment in my retreat. I entered into this retreat
expecting to journey closer to Jesus. After all, this retreat comes right before Final Profession. I
kind of looked at it as a discernment tool: shall I make Final Profession, or not? However, the
Lord blew me away with all that He did for me.
A relationship with God the Father was something that always boggled my mind. Believe it or not, the title Spouse of Christ made so much sense to me, but “child of God” left me with a blank look on my face. What does it mean to be a child? What does it mean to be little? What was it like when Jesus spoke to his Father? As this curiosity unfolded in my heart, I found myself on a journey to Jesus AND the Father, with all expenses paid by the Holy Spirit. It was only in seeing that I was loved by Christ that I was able to trust him and let him break through my fear of the unknown...of being a child. I felt drawn to that identity but was chained by fears and doubts….I’m 26, I can’t start being a child now. I missed that train. I wouldn’t even know how to act….. Jesus drowned those fears. He brought me to the Father. I, too, was able to be reunited to my Father, just as the Prodigal Son was reunited to his. I, too, experienced his extravagant outpouring of love. Now, in my new found “childhood”, I must admit, I’m still taking baby steps. I’m tottering and falling. I take three steps and then ask myself, “Now how does this whole walking thing work again?” But, I’ve found a new identity. It’s tremendously exciting.
That’s just it. Life in faith is exciting and exhilarating. There’s room for singing, and there’s room for dancing. But, if you only dance to your own playlist, your steps lose the passion and adventure that they could have if you would only let Jesus take over. Let Jesus be the DJ...I promise, He will surprise you beyond your greatest expectations.
