Tomorrow afternoon I will head off with about forty of my church friends. We have an annual women’s retreat at a beautiful camp about an hour away from our church. To the best of my knowledge, there will be no other foster or adoptive parents in the group.

This will be my fourth or fifth year attending, I can’t quite remember, but it has been wonderfully renewing each year. One of our pastors, and her sister-in-law help to lead the retreat. They have both become dear friends.

It’s been about eighteen months since our last retreat. We had to change the date, so I have been anxiously awaiting this. The sister-in-law, Lonnie, is an amazing woman who awes and inspires me every time I see her. Last year she played a song called “Testify to Love” by Avalon. While everyone else was praising, singing and dancing, I was crying my eyes out. This retreat took place a couple of months after Sammy had been admitted to his first residential placement and I was feeling like an awful mom. Lonnie and I sat and talked while I cried and she assured me that I did love my son, despite all the feelings I was having.

To make matters even more amazing, she suggested biomedical testing to me. I was blown away. Julie and I had talked about the testing but I was skeptical. Here was this woman who had nothing to do with foster care and adoption telling me I needed to do this. OK, God, got the message loud and clear.

Our theme this year is “Tending Your Spiritual Garden”, which is something I often neglect. We have time of bible study, craft time, plenty of food, we have a tea party complete with fancy teas, cups and hats, and even “quiet time” to read, take a walk, or whatever else we want to do. The neat thing is that you’re free to join as many or as few things as you like. The schedule is posted for the weekend, so everyone knows what’s coming next. If you choose to sleep the whole weekend, you’re free to do that too.

This will be our last retreat with our pastor as we only have one more week with them leading our church. It will be a bittersweet time, and we anticipate lots of tissues being used. I am grateful to have this time to spend with friends, and to nurture myself and my spirit.

Julie’s blogs on Biomedical testing

Testify to Love lyrics

Photo credit – Cake I made for the retreat