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79: YES Moments - The Importance of Retreating (Part 1)
241 Plays2 years ago
YES moments have been introduced to Season 5 of the podcast and Jill Devine described what YES moments are in Episode 77.
She realized she pigeon holed herself by keeping the YES moments to sermon messages only. YES moments occur all around us in different ways. The most recent YES moments Jill had happened while she was on a women’s retreat. In this week’s episode, Jill provides the backstory on how she ended up at the women’s retreat.
Episode links Jill mentioned in the episode include:
Episode 57: Mental Health Struggles – Anxiety, Burnout, and Panic with Christy Boulware
Pastor’s Wives Tell All
Invitation to Retreat by Ruth Haley Barton
Normal Goes A Long Way Website: https://www.normalgoesalongway.com/
Normal Goes A Long Way Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/normalgoesalongway/
Normal Goes A Long Way Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Normal-Goes-A-Long-Way-110089491250735
Normal Goes A Long Way is brought to you by Messiah St. Charles: https://messiahstcharles.org/
Two Kids and A Career: https://www.jilldevine.com/podcast
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Transcript
Introduction and Personal Journey
00:00:00
Speaker
The following podcast is a Jill Devine Media production. Christianity has become known for judgy people, strange words, ancient stories, confusing rules, and a members-only mindset. This is why I stayed away from the church for so long, but it's not supposed to be that way. I'm Jill Devine, a former radio personality with three tattoos, a love for a good tequila, and who's never read the entire Bible.
00:00:24
Speaker
Yet here I am hosting a podcast about faith.
Purpose of the Podcast
00:00:27
Speaker
The normal goes a long way podcast is your home for real conversations with real people using real language about how faith and real life intersect. Welcome to the conversation.
00:00:39
Speaker
Thank you for hitting play on this week's episode.
Exploring 'Yes Moments'
00:00:42
Speaker
I'm your host Jill Devine. And the last couple episodes, actually season five, which we're in right now, has been about yes moments. And I realized that I pigeonholed myself when explaining yes moments.
00:00:58
Speaker
I had said, and this is still true, that yes moments were these moments that I experienced while listening to the sermon on a Sunday morning at church. And that is true and those will continue to happen. But I realized yes moments also happen while listening to a podcast like this one. They happen while listening to a song, reading a book,
00:01:24
Speaker
having a conversation with others, experiences. Yes moments are completely surrounding us. And so I am now leaning into those and asking Ryan and Laura and others that have been on this podcast to lean into those and share them. And so this is me sharing my first yes moment outside of sermon.
Desire for Personal Retreat
00:01:47
Speaker
I'd like to back up a little bit to explain how these yes moments
00:01:54
Speaker
happened and a couple years ago, I had been feeling this tug that I wanted to go on some sort of retreat. I actually had said, this is what I want to do when I'm 50. I want to go to a luxurious retreat and be pampered and spoiled and, and maybe learn a little bit about myself, but just retreat. And
00:02:24
Speaker
Then it's kind of changed over the couple of years that I've been thinking about it. I knew that I wanted to go on a retreat before the age of 50 and I'm 46. I knew that I wanted it to be a women's retreat. I wasn't interested in any kind of co-ed retreat. I don't even, I mean, maybe there's couples retreats. I don't know, didn't research that. And I also knew that I wanted to go by myself.
00:02:51
Speaker
because I knew that I wanted to go to a retreat where I did some work on me and I don't think even your bestest of friends sometimes you're not your true authentic self. So those were kind of the criteria I had when I started looking and started searching like what did I want to do? Did I want to
00:03:17
Speaker
You know, spend time in nature. Did I want to focus on the spa side of things? Did I want to focus just on meditation? I didn't really know exactly where to look, what to look for.
Considering Women's Retreat
00:03:34
Speaker
I just had this on my heart.
00:03:39
Speaker
Then we had a wonderful woman on the podcast, Christy Bulware. Laura Fleetwood interviewed her about her battle with anxiety and depression. And I will link that episode in the show notes. And that conversation led to a coffee date that I had with Christy, just to get a little bit more about her story and for her to hear my story because I wasn't a part of that podcast episode. And, um,
00:04:09
Speaker
It was a great conversation that we had over coffee and one of the things that she brought up and she didn't even know that I was actively looking for a women's retreat is she brought up something that she had just found out that she was going to be a part of and it was
00:04:29
Speaker
a woman's retreat for women in ministry. And she was teaming up with The Pastor's Wives Tell All. If you have not followed that podcast yet, please do. These ladies are awesome. And so she said, hey, I'm going to team up with them for this retreat. It's happening in September. I think that you would really enjoy it.
00:04:57
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I think that you would get something out of it.
Choosing a Retreat: Wisdom for the Weary
00:05:01
Speaker
I think that you will get some answers. And so after the coffee date, I put the information in my calendar, penciled it in, and just kind of thought about it. Didn't really do much with the information, just put it out there. And I continued to still look for retreats. Well, then the information came out.
00:05:27
Speaker
the Wisdom for the Weary Women's Retreat happening in Branson, Missouri. And it was designed specifically for female ministry leaders. And I sat on it for a little bit. I even text Christy a few times. I'm like, well, what about this? What about that? Can I come late? Can I leave early? I don't know. Tons of questions. And then I just had to pray over it.
00:05:55
Speaker
And then I said yes. And I would be lying if I said I went to my calendar and put it in ink. I kept it in pencil because maybe that was my way of not fully committing because I, you know, have kids four and six, they're young, they need me. And maybe they would need me that weekend.
00:06:20
Speaker
Well, I started talking more and more about the retreat with Laura Fleetwood and Ryan Finler and other coworkers and definitely expressed my excitement, but also my nervousness because I've never been on a retreat. And this one was a Christian retreat. And this is all still kind of new to me.
Preparation and Recommendations
00:06:45
Speaker
And so just kept talking about it, talking about it. And Ryan Finler suggested that I read a book that he read before a retreat that he went on. And the book, and I will put it in the show notes, Invitation to Retreat, The Gift and Necessity of Time Away with God. And it is by Ruth Haley Barton. And I'm going to read this
00:07:05
Speaker
description of the book. It says, there has never been a time when the invitation to retreat is so radical and so relevant, so needed and so welcome. It is not a luxury, but a necessity of the spiritual life. Transforming Center founder and seasoned spiritual director Ruth Healy Barton gently leads us into retreat as a key practice that opens us to God.
00:07:27
Speaker
Based on her own practice and experience leading hundreds of retreats for others, she will guide you in a very personal exploration of retreat. You will discover how to say yes to God's winsome invitation to greater freedom and surrender. And one thing I will say is not everyone can go on a retreat outside of their town, outside of their schedule. This book is really good for
00:07:54
Speaker
preparing you for an organized retreat or helping you learn how to retreat in your home or maybe in your church.
00:08:07
Speaker
This book, I just want to tell you, it doesn't have to be about going on an organized retreat. It's very helpful. I will say that it definitely opened my eyes to a lot of things and also confirmed a lot of the feelings that I was feeling. So I think that you can get something out of it regardless.
Themes of Exhaustion and Busyness
00:08:27
Speaker
But I want to read a few things that stood out to me.
00:08:32
Speaker
Ryan gave this to me. He said, you need to read this before you go. It's going to help you. And he's right. But I also think there were so many yes moments in this book that it's just worth sharing. So to recap, I signed up for the retreat, bought this book based on Ryan's recommendation and started reading it a few weeks before I left for the retreat. But I'm going to talk about chapter three right now, the sources of our exhaustion.
00:09:03
Speaker
I think we all need to hear this. It is impossible to overstate the level of exhaustion many of us are experiencing these days and how dangerous it is. Christian busyness layered on top of the stresses of life in our culture along with the more subtle sources of exhaustion that are harder to identify means we are all at risk of drifting into dangerous levels of exhaustion before we even know it.
00:09:30
Speaker
There are reasons why we end up as tired as we are, and one of the keys to being able to enter into retreat in a restorative way is to note the sources of our exhaustion so we can rest at the source. The exhaustion that comes from always being plugged in and available, and the exhaustion that comes from trying so hard and juggling so much. Why are we so tired?
00:09:55
Speaker
As Christians or simply as responsible human beings, many of us feel that we should be willing to be exhausted in the service of God and others and that this is normal. We have unreasonable expectations that we should be a never-ending fountain of love, goodwill, and service at all times and in all places. We don't know how to live with our humanness, and we feel guilty or at least uncomfortable with ourselves when we are ill, tired, grieving, or confused.
00:10:24
Speaker
Not knowing what to do with these human aspects of ourselves, we try to shove them down and keep them under the surface or just outside our awareness. But even that takes energy. Shoving them down creates a slow leak, draining us of our energy over time and in the process, unhealed emotion and exhaustion gets buried alive.
00:10:44
Speaker
But make no mistake, it is all still there and these buried dynamics will eventually make themselves known in uglier and more destructive ways than if we had simply acknowledged them and dealt with them honestly and openly. And we find it difficult or even humiliating to receive help from others. Another part of chapter three that really got me and I
00:11:10
Speaker
highlighted these two words over and over and over again, ought and shoulds. So Ruth says, we might even develop a subtle conviction that we are valuable only when we are performing. The simplest way to understand this is that ought and shoulds
00:11:28
Speaker
come from someone else. So when we are doing things because we think we should, we are reacting and responding to something outside ourselves. Authentic desire, on the other hand, comes from within and is a part of who we are. A wise spiritual person always listens and pays attention to the subtle distinction between ought and shoulds and the authentic desires God has placed within them.
00:11:55
Speaker
As I said, while reading this book, I had several yes moments, but there were some that were way louder than others, like this paragraph, and this is one that I am working on. We may have few or no boundaries on our service and availability to others.
00:12:15
Speaker
Oh my, this one really, really resonates with me. Ruth says, we always feel we should do more because there is always more to do. The result can be a nonstop pace of life that, at its best, is tied to genuine passion for what we do, genuine longing to experience life fully, to go through every open door, to seize every opportunity, and to contribute to every good cause and mission.
00:12:40
Speaker
But we can also reach a point where our genuine gifts and passions wear us out because it's so exciting we don't know when to stop. We can become addicted to the adrenaline this excitement produces or to the sense of importance we gain from it. But eventually we crash against the wall of human limitation.
00:13:01
Speaker
Yes, yes, and yes. That for sure is one of my biggest yes moments. I am learning that I need to put boundaries on. I am learning that I do not have to be available 24-7. It is hard. It is so, so, so, so, so hard, but I am learning.
00:13:20
Speaker
And further on into chapter three, she says, by calling them to come away and rest a while in the midst of so much human need, Jesus was getting on the prevention side of this human tendency. He was guiding them into a healthy and sustainable lifestyle by helping them establish boundaries and rhythms around their availability to others.
Importance of Personal Retreats
00:13:42
Speaker
He did not want them to wear themselves out to the point where they would be no good
00:13:47
Speaker
to anyone. And she is referring to what Jesus is trying to convey to his disciples in Mark 6. It is hard to admit exhaustion. It is hard to sit in stillness. It is hard to say, I don't have the boundaries, but that's what we have to do. And I just, oh, Ruth, she really, this book, it just puts it all into perspective.
00:14:16
Speaker
She really shows you how retreating is so, so, so important. So once you realize all of that, and then you're starting to take the next steps of actually retreating, whether that be in your home or going on an organized retreat, the next thing that Ruth talks about is letting go of your grip.
00:14:41
Speaker
Here are some highlights from Chapter 6. Relinquishment as a defining characteristic of retreat is actually what Emily Griffin is describing when she says, quote, making a retreat requires a certain kind of trust. We need to trust the spirit. In contrast to vacations or holidays in which activities, plans, sightseeing, sports, entertainment or events are within our control, retreat
00:15:06
Speaker
leads us into a less predictable situation. We don't know what God has in store for us, but we are willing to risk what we will find out." Ruth also talks about how it's hard to want to leave our kids, our family, that we have so many things on the schedule that we can't be gone for, but those are actually the times that we need to leave.
00:15:35
Speaker
And she brings up that Jesus shows us that sometimes we can do more for people in our absence than we can do for them in our presence. And that sentence really, really hit me because I oftentimes have a hard time leaving my kids. I think that, you know, one thing growing up
00:16:00
Speaker
And my mom still does it. She puts her kids and her grandkids before her own self. And I want to model to my girls that taking care of their self should be a priority.
00:16:20
Speaker
And so that means I have to take care of myself and going away on a retreat was one way to do so. And when the doubts creep in and the anxiety creeps in.
00:16:36
Speaker
I kind of have to just like do this switch. I have to think about, okay, do the girls really wanna stay home with mama and do the same old thing every single night? Or would they rather go on a sleepover and be completely spoiled by their grandparents? I think I know the answer. And so sometimes I have to just switch that way of thinking and go, okay,
00:17:04
Speaker
They want to go out. They want to have something different. I want to go out and I want to have something different and it is okay for them to be nervous. It is okay for me to be nervous, but it will be okay. And so when I just kept, I keep rereading this.
Reflections on Spiritual Freedom
00:17:26
Speaker
He shows us that sometimes we can do more for people in our absence than we can do for them in our presence.
00:17:33
Speaker
another big yes moment. It's the relinquishing that is very difficult. And Ruth talks about that and she says, as frightening as relinquishment sounds, the result is spiritual freedom. The freedom to be what and who God is calling me to be.
00:17:55
Speaker
not who I have been unconsciously programmed to be, who others are telling me to be, or even who I am determined to be. This is our true self in God, totally abandoned to the one who loves us, on retreat and always. I am going to leave it right there for now. Those were just a few of the highlights that I had from Ruth's book, Invitation to Retreat. Like I said, I will have the link to this book in the show notes.
00:18:24
Speaker
And I'm going to come back in our next episode to talk about the thoughts that I had leading up to the retreat. I mean, I've already given you quite a few, but I'm talking about like the week of and then
00:18:37
Speaker
what happened on retreat. So I would love to invite you to come back to listen to that and also invite you to retreat, to listen, to be still, and just know that the more you trust God, the easier it will become. More Yes Moments coming in our next episode.