How Big is Your God?
I went to this year Women’s Retreat without any real expectations. I showed up knowing I was going to be the youngest person there that was not still in diapers, and wondered how that was going to play out. I wondered if I was going to have anything in common with anyone there, and if the speakers would even have anything to say that was relevant to a single 24 year old. But God doesn’t have age boundaries.
One of the talks was about how we make God small in the way we treat situations and aspects of our lives. As I was listened to this I thought, “Well obviously this doesn’t apply to me! I know how huge God is. Of course I do, I talk about that all the time in Sunday school. This must only apply to women who are older and have families.” After getting that happily cleared up in my mind, my mind started to wander. I began thinking about something that I worry about a LOT. Like most people, finances weigh heavily on my mind more than I care to admit. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, many of them financially. Now I’m paying for some of those mistakes, quite literally. On top of that I often find myself not believing that God will provide for me, especially after all the dumb things I’ve done. I try fixing things myself, only to end up making things worse. As I was thinking about this, I suddenly saw the size of my view of God shrinking. I was shocked! When had this happened?
As the weekend progressed I continued to think about this minimized God of mine. When Sunday morning rolled around one of the last things we were asked to do was take a stick, which symbolized our small God, and get rid of it. So I trekked out to the beach with the rest of the women to get rid of my stick. As I was standing on the edge of the water I decided maybe it was time I let God worry about my money issues. So I said a short prayer, pitched my little stick as far as I could, and went to play in the sand with some of the other women who were done.
I didn’t give much thought to the whole thing until about 4:00 the next day. I was sitting at my desk waiting for the work day to finally end when my phone rang. It turned out to be a woman from Human Recourses. She was calling to let me know that they had been re-evaluating my position and had decided to give me a raise, was I alright with that? After the initial shock and confusion wore off I laughed and said of course, send the paper work right up! Hanging up the phone I remembered my prayer the day before and was amazed. I never realized giving something over to God could be so easy! All this week I’ve been finding more and more things in my life that I haven’t been trusting God with, and have continued to hand them back over to him. I’ve seen God work in more ways this week than any other time in my life. I’m sure there will be times in the future when I will shrink Him down again. But I pray now that God would continually remind me of this week.
As for being the youngest woman there this weekend, I realized age really
doesn’t matter. I made some amazing new friends, and hope that
I will continue to make more at next years retreat, which I have every
intention of going to.