I have been leading small groups with Open Hearts Ministry for almost 15 years. One thing I know, that no matter how prepared I go into the week, I will come home next week exhausted, empty and satisfied.
Starting Friday evening approx 35 leaders will spend the weekend together sorting through our own stories. We will take time to explore our dignity and where God is using our strengths. We will also explore our depravity and where we are hiding or even harming ourselves or others we are in relationship with. It is always a time that I enter with some excitement and anticipation. I long for honest feedback in my life and appreciate the invitation to live honestly in the presence of others. It comes with great risk as well as great reward. We all commit to one another to “stay in it” and to put words to the feelings of our heart. Please pray that I will enter our leaders weekend with a heart that is tender, willing to pour out and receive back . Pray that I will love myself and others with gentle Truth and abundant Grace.
Come Monday morning, over 100 participants will begin to arrive. They will come with the same sense of anticipation and excitement not being sure of what to expect. They will journey to their hearts next week and be invited into the hearts of others. They will experience how to enter into the shame of their own hearts and others, they will experience how to discern between dignity and depravity, in their own life and others, and they will learn what it means to name, grieve, celebrate and embrace the story of their own heart and the stories of others.
It is a week of amazing adventure and discovery….
It is a week of wild and relentless pursuit….
It is a week of floods of tears and shrieks of laughter…
It is a week of amazing connection with others who share similar longings, disappointments, joys and celebrations….
It is Holy Ground…and for that reason…I consider it a privilege to come home exhausted, empty and satisfied.
Trish, you have truly captured in words what we all feel. You are gifted. We are praying. b and r