This past week we had the pleasure of hosting all of the missionaries from South America (Colombia and Ecuador) as well as many folks from Chicago for a Missionary Retreat.  It was a wonderful time of connecting, sharing, praying, and learning.  We’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

You may want to click play on the song at the bottom of this post so as to let the music play as you are reading.

I (Joel) wanted to share a little bit from how God spoke to me during my Sabbath Retreat as I know you all are a little curious and also were praying for me during that time.  I have to say, first of all, that this was an amazing time for me as I was able to spend three whole days with God without any external distractions and it was amazing!!!  Each day God was teaching me something new and I was deepening my relationship with him all the while focusing on the importance of Sabbath and how my family and I can maintain a deeper sense of Sabbath in our lives.

I want to share what I learned one day and how God was working on me and I hope that this will serve as an encouragement to you as I know we all face our battles and are often looking for God to speak in our lives.

Whenever I share my testimony (at least the long version), I always talk about how God always needs to “shake me up” to get me to listen; I guess I can be a bit thick-sculled or maybe less observant than others to how the Holy Spirit is speaking to me but that has been the case for me, unfortunately, throughout my life.  This was the case again for me with this Sabbath retreat as it took me flying to the U.S. and being “confined” to a campgrounds on the outskirts of Memphis and being “forced” to spend time with God in order to get me to listen.  Now, a lot of that was tongue in cheek as you know, but anyways, you get the point.  I need to take drastic action to be open enough to listen to God.  I’m admitting a fault here if you haven’t caught on.  It’s good to be able to be aware of your shortcomings and admit them in order to grow in them, especially in your relationship with God.

The first full day of the retreat we started with a group session and when we were finishing the up the session before being sent out to spend time alone with God, the leaders played the song below (or the one playing for you right now) as a way to do final worship before being sent out.  I’ve never heard this song before and it really struck me.  Or better, God really struck me with it.  As soon as the song started and the words “All Will Be Well” started echoing, my mind immediately raced to a thought… a thought that could have only come from God.

Here is what God gave me in that moment.  I realized in that moment right as the song started playing that Ephraim was born on August 26th and August 26th was two weeks earlier than his due date.  The big thing there was that he had to come out THAT day because of medical complications.  If we would have waited any further time than THAT day, his health would have been at risk.  So Ephraim was born on August 26th, much earlier than what we were expecting.  Then I remembered the 26th was an important day for us (don’t ask me why I didn’t think of this before now) because my mom, Ruthie, passed away on January 26th.  Then as I thought about things further and started counting the months, I realized that Ephraim was born exactly 7 months to the day after my mom passed away.  And then I remembered again that he had to come out THAT day, August 26th.  As I pondered things further, I caught on to the fact 7 months was significant because there I was on a Sabbath retreat and focusing on the importance of the Sabbath, which is the 7th day of creation.  The 7th day is the day God created for us, made it Holy in order to rest and spend time with Him.  Then my mind kept racing as I realized that what God was sharing with me and wanting me to realize through all of these thoughts is that I haven’t yet had the time to mourn the loss of my mother and further that this is exactly why Sabbath and rest is so important for me and my family.  If I don’t take time for Sabbath, time to rest and commune with Him, basic things like mourning for the passing of one’s mother, can get over looked.  Incredible!

So, there I was in the middle of this group session taking time to worship and my mind went back to this song playing for us and reverberating… “All Will Be Well.”  The words kept echoing and echoing, so much so that they penetrated my soul.  I burst into tears just thinking about Ruthie and spent the next hour listening to this song on repeat and mourning the loss of my mom.  I miss her so!!!

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