Some Photos by LouAnn Christie

Elaine -telling us about the Oasis dvd.
The Cross
Roses and journals
Darlene
Betsy - our worship leader

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"I'm saving $20/month so I can come again"

I would describe this retreat as a protected time in a quiet place so that we can meet with the Lord. I think the huge blessing of this retreat is that the agenda is to be quiet and there's not the pressure of socializing -- just because that can be a difficult thing to choose between for me (being quiet or socializing). I had a wonderful time.
Lake Godfrey ... along a walk I came upon Lake Godfrey which sad to say reminded me of me. Low (need to fill back up), stagnant (not moving forward) .. no movement. What a vivid word picture the Lord gave to me.

There's nothing like retreating with other women to fill you up with the Lord's love. It was fantastic. I can't wait for November.

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What a Wonderful Time we had!

"The Lord used this time to simply remove me - physically, emotionally and spiritually from the "crisis chaos" of my current life circumstances -- and in His perfect timing -- knowing all along this was the EXACT time I needed to be here and to be with the EXACT women who were here.

The Springs, twice a year, is a commitment I've made to the Lord and I will be here each time, unless an unforeseeable situation prevents me from coming. I put it on my calendar--and it is a priority for me -- to spend time with the Lord - here - in this way - with the precious women of NEWIM and the women who join us. My experience at The Springs has made me a better person--grown my FAITH and given me strength, comfort and peace in a way I did not know was possible. I am grateful beyond expression for the opportunity to be here - each and every time. To the NEWIM Springs Team -- ,my eternal and gracious thanks and love!"
This retreat has been an unexpected gift. A gift to be opened, to be used, to be treasured. A time of letting go of the world for 3 days and refreshing my spirit at the river of life -- in the arms of my Father.
"This retreat is a time for sweet worship, time for reflection and meditation and silence and solitude in the presence of the Lord. The environment is beautiful and peaceful with lovely walking paths. It's a time to let go of all the busyness and stresses of everyday life and dwell in the presence of the Lord. It was fabulous!"
"This retreat is an amazing time with the Lord. Come with an open mind, open heart, and no expectations. The Lord will lead you."

"What a blessing! My worship time alone on the hiking trail was so precious -- after I was back in my room I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror -- and was surprised (and amused to be surprised) that I looked the same -- I expected my face to be glowing!"

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from Christy Wold

After 30 years of following Christ, I finally understand the difference between belief that God exists and is the way, and experiencing God's presence and love for me. Over three lovely days set aside to be with God I discovered him to be beyond anything I can imagine or capture, and yet he had me put my head on his knee as I sat at his feet and he told me to stop all my questioning and seeking and doing for a moment so he could tell me that he loves me. I was able to see how beautiful it is in the present with my Abba. God did provide grace for each "thing" I had to do so I could live in the present and not worry about the future. I even enjoyed cleaning up and wasn't just hurrying to get to the next thing - how freeing.

Thank you God for Saturn, Sirius, star nurseries, and all your wonders - the wildflowers, clouds, and gentle breeze. I feel like I am still glowing after being in your presence. It is absolutely amazing what you can do when I give you the time. I can't wait for November Springs - what a gift Lord. Thank you......

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Chapels focused on Trust from the Psalms

Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer
From the ends of the earth I call to you,
I call as my heart grows faint;
Lead me to the rock that is higher than I

My soul finds rest in God alone;
my salvation comes from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation;
He is my fortress, I will never be shaken.

Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your hearts to him,
for God is our refuge.

One thing God has spoken,
two things have I heard:
that you, O God, are strong,
and that you, O Lord, are loving.
Surely you will reward each person
according to what he has done.

O God, you are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you,
my body longs for you,
in a dry and weary land
where there is no water.

Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.

excerpts from Psalm 61, 62, and 63

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A few testimonies from The Springs retreat in April

"The Lord used this time in my life to show me through the sessions, the conversations, the "sistership" that I am not a reject but someone who is loved, valued, and chosen. He also showed me, and taught me about Trust. I learned the truth (about what God wants and desires for my life), how to release (myself, my pain, my expectations, my pride), that it's OK to be uncomfortable and that safety can only be found in the arms of Abba. And finally that the Trinity--Father, Son and Holy Spirit are continuing their work in me."

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How did the Lord use The Springs retreat in your life?

The retreat was "awesome, amazing, freeing and healing. The Lord truly met me here and walked with me. This retreat is unlike any other retreat I've been on. This retreat has been one of those life defining times. I don't know that every time will be like this. Yet, I trust that everyone of them will be sweet with His presence."



"I received an opportunity to quiet myself and simply spend time with the Lord. I was able to simply refocus my thoughts and priorities on God alone. He has filled me with His peace and I feel like my relationship with Him has been strengthened. I feel refreshed and ready to go back into the world."

"The Springs is a place to go to meet with the Lord. To get away from all distractions and allow yourself to simply hear God's voice speak to you."

"I really appreciated the practical talk about journaling by Luann and I felt God was just putting His finger on the importance of this practice for me. In fact, I went back through my journal from the last year or so of a really intense growth period and major challenges in my life and realized I barely scribed anything in a year period. So, I feel like the tool of journaling to focus with the Lord is being downloaded to my heart, here. And, the importance of listening in prayer -- not just talking -- and making regular time to listen to His Holy Spirit speaking deep into my heart. What a warm group and a wonderful time to do and be just this -- quiet. That's so hard to find in the daily grind. I'd love to come for longer!"
"The Lord revealed to me that I need to stop filling up my calendar with so much activity and schedule time for silence and solitude -- time to spend with Him. He is working to heal my wounded heart and reveal to me how much He loves me. The worship time was sweet and seemed directed just for me. The silent time allowed me an opportunity to just be in His presence. God met me here in such a sweet, gentle and loving way."

"The Lord loved on me in the most amazing ways. He wooed me into falling into His loving arms. He showed me that I can instill my trust in Him."

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Our Retreat is finally here!

This week we'll be meeting at St. Anthony's near Three Rivers and at Prince of Peace Abbey in Orange County. We are all really looking forward to having lots of time to be with the Lord and to pursue our relationship with him.

In the North, we'll be using Psalm 61, 62, and 63 to focus our chapels --and spending time reflecting on the Lord's love for us, and our trust in Him.

"To those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ: Mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance." Jude 1:1

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Only six weeks before the next Springs!

Our next Springs Retreat is April 14 - 16, 2010. We are meeting in two locations-near Visalia and in Oceanside. We'd love to have you join us.

At St. Anthony's (near Visalia) our focus is going to be on Trusting the Lord -- our chapels will be centered in Psalm 62.

Brennan Manning writes that his spiritual director told him, "Brennan, you don't need more insights into the faith. You've got enough insights to last you three hundred years. The most urgent need in your life is to trust what you have received." I think that could be said to most of us -- but learning to trust what the Lord has given us is not as easy as it would seem. We spend our whole lives constructing ways to avoid being dependent on God. At this Springs, we'll talk about the challenges and be encouraged to let our roots grow deeper into the heart of God that we might be women who trust him.

Go to www.newim.com to sign up -- or email me, and I'll get you the information. luannbudd@sbcglobal.net

Hope to see you there. There are scholarships available. So if you'd love to come, or know of a friend that you think would really like to come but doesn't have the $255 -- let me know and we'll work out a scholarship.

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Come to the Springs this April

Augustine once said that “educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” At the Springs, the Spirit teaches us what our hearts have yet to fully grasp…

• That communing with God is never a waste of time but an investment in an eternal friendship.


• That seeking God is always worthy of my effort…even when He is silent or appears to be absent.


• That the nearness of my God is the one true ‘good’ that I can no longer live without.


• That intimacy with God is not something we make happen, but something we create space for.


• That experiencing God’s love is all that I truly need in this life.


• That I will only love my God to the degree that His love has been internalized in me.


• That silence before God helps me learn to lay down the power of my words.


• That I’m fully seen in my brokenness, still loved in my failures and deeply cherished by my heavenly Father. (Anonymous author)

Come to the next Springs and see what the Holy Spirit wants to reveal to your heart.

Thanks to the generous donations of many, $100 and $200 scholarships are available. Please email questions or your request for a partial scholarship to Darlene Derby at darlenederby@comcast.net

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The Treasure

“The treasure is the real presence of Christ in our midst.”

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Receiving, submitting, praying

“Having the Bible, defending and celebrating the Bible instead of receiving, submitting to, and praying the Bible, masks an enormous amount of non-reading.” (Eugene Peterson, Eat this Book, 140). One of the wonderful aspects of the The Springs retreat is that we have time to really receive the Word.

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The Word

Reading the Scripture puts solid food in our mouths, meditation chews it and breaks it down, prayer obtains the flavor of it and contemplation is the very sweetness which makes us glad and refreshes us.” Guigo the Second, 12^th century monk.

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Love and Do as You Will

Carlo Carretto writes: I have known the satisfaction of unrestrained action, and the joy of the contemplative life in the dazzling peace of the desert, and I repeat again St. Augustine's words: "Love and do as you will." Don't worry about what you ought to do. Worry about loving. Don't interrogate heaven repeatedly and uselessly saying, "What course of action should I pursue?" Concentrate on loving instead.

And by loving you will find out what is for you. Loving, you will listen to the Voice. Loving, you will find peace.

Love is the fulfillment of the law and should be everyone's rule of life; in the end it's the solution to every problem, the motive for all good.

"Love and do as you will."

This is the crux. When I love I can no longer do as I will.
When I love I am love's prisoner; and love is tremendous in its demands when it has God as its object, especially a crucified God. I can no longer do my own will. I must do the will of Jesus, which is the will of the Father.

And when I have learned to do his will (to love), I shall have fully realized my vocation on earth and I shall have achieved the highest stage a man can reach...if the will of God urges you to seek out the poor, to give up all you possess, or to leave for distant lands, what does the rest matter? Or if it calls you to found a family, or take on a job in a city, why should you have any doubts? "His will is our peace," says Dante. And perhaps that is the expression which best brings into focus our deep dependence on God.

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Transformation

The goal of the spiritual journey is the transformation of self which requires knowing both our self and God -- if we are to discover our identity in Christ we must know both.

I would think that it would be much harder to know God than to know ourselves. But since the fall, we have become masters at hiding. We tend to create a public, idealized self that we disclose to others. Deep down inside, we believe that our value depends on what we have, what we can do, and what others think of us. It's not so much that we tell lies about who we are...we live the lies.

The only way to unmask the lie is a radical encounter with the truth.

Experiencing the love of God gives us the courage to peak behind the curtain and see our true self. Spending time at The Springs focused on experientially knowing God's love for us, leads us to confession and transformation.

As John Calvin wrote: "There is no deep knowing of God without a deep knowing of self, and no deep knowing of self with a deep knowing of God." This deep knowing can occur at The Springs.

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Journaling

Moody Radio's Midday Connection www.middayconnection.org focused their June 2 program on Journaling. Luann was one of their guests. Here's a link to the webpage -- then click on the "Listen Now" icon on the right sidebar. (Luann's section is the last 15 minutes.)

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Pray or Act?

Pray or act? How do we know? Some advice from Carlo Carretto:

Live love, let love invade you. It will never fail to teach you what you must do.

Charity, which is God in us, will point to the way ahead. It will say to you "Now kneel," or "Now leave."

It is love which gives things their value. It makes sense of the difficulty of spending hours and hours on one's knees praying while so many need looking after in the world; and in the context of love we must view our inability to change the world, to wipe out evil and suffering.

It is love which must determine one's actions, love which must give unity to what is divided.

Love is the synthesis of contemplation and action, the meeting-point between heaven and earth, between God and humanity.

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An oasis of love

The heart of the Gospel is to be an oasis of love in whatever desert we might find ourselves.

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Finding solitude

Thomas Merton taught us that solitude is not simply a matter of geography.

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Forgiveness

“Converting a painful inheritance (the difficult things that have happened to us) into something good requires all the discernment we can muster, both from what is within us, and what we can glean from mentors. The worst of the curses that people inflict on us, the real abuse and terror, can’t be forgotten or undone, but they can be put to good use in the new life that one has taken up. It is a kind of death; the lid closes on what went before. But the past is not denied. And we are still here, with all of our talent, gifts, and failings, our strengths and weaknesses. All the baggage comes along; nothing wasted, nothing lost. Perhaps the greatest blessing that religious inheritance can bestow is an open mind, one that can listen without judging. It is rare enough that we recognize it in another when we encounter it. I often see it in people who have attained what the monastic tradition terms “detachment,” an ability to live at peace with the reality of whatever happens. Such people do not have a close-off air, nor a boastful demeanor. In them, it is clear, their wounds have opened the way to compassion for others. And compassion is the strength and soul of a religion.”

Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace, pg. 29

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Prayer Songs CD

Many of you suggested that we sell copies of the CDs we use at the beginning of chapels. They can be purchased online from Whole Hearted Worship:

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God just wants my heart

How did the Lord use the retreat in your life?

"Taught me that God requires my love not my accomplishments for him. I was touched by the love he has for me. I needed this time alone so badly. The timing was perfect."

Track 2: "In a word- powerfully. He confirmed direction that he has been preparing me for. It was a great treat to have one-on-one time with Shirley and Betsy. I didn’t expect that and it was a huge blessing. Thank you team for the great sacrifice you each make to facilitate this event that so powerfully impacts those who come. May God bless you richly for your obedience and surrendered hearts."

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Our Father...

How did the Lord use the time at The Springs in your life? One woman wrote:
"I felt God telling me to come but I had no idea why. However, who are we to question, right? I enjoyed the first day but started to wish there was more time with others since I was not sure what to do with myself…by myself. Then Wednesday chapel talked about God as not just a father but my daddy when that hit me I began to cry I have always been told that God loved me but never the way The Springs did. Brought me to tears! God brought my walk with him to a new level of closeness. My walk and outlook has never been where I am now. Once that happened all the struggles I had been dealing with started to come out and forced me to address a lot of those things. Keep the prayer time. It is a huge part that I really needed.

"I loved the symbolism, rose, candle, the letter to ourselves! Great workshops! Wonderful job! Everything felt vital!"

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Word of God speak

This song and the slide show communicates the heart of The Springs.

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Just what I needed

We had a wonderful time at the retreat. Track 1 leads women through a private retreat; Track 2 offers a combination of group discussion and prayer and lots of time for solitude; Track 3 is up to you to decide what you'd like to do:

Laura wrote: "I appreciate the flexibility given on Track 3. To be able to choose to do as much or little with the group gave me a more renewed feeling and time with the Lord uninterrupted was kept as my priority. Thank you for not making it feel like I “should” do this or that. I was able to make The Springs just what I needed this time."

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Soaked in his love

"I needed quiet time with the Lord."

"I was able to be with the Lord and it was rich and blessed. I missed a few things by choice because I wanted or yearned to be alone with God longer. The rest and solitude I had here was so wonderful – I didn’t realize I needed it as much as I did. The chapels were really awesome – spirit-filled. Thank you all for making The Springs such a wonderful and beautiful time to be renewed and refreshed. I long to be with the Lord more and more as I spend quality time with him. He truly does satisfy."

"It was time to soak in his love so I might have it to share with others."

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Lavished with God's love

One woman wrote: "I had not been on this type of retreat before but had wanted to. So when my friend suggested I attend with her, I prayed and God clearly wanted me here. I came with expectations of much time alone with God and brought many of my own ideas and resources with me. I had heard God’s voice to attend The Springs but, as so typical of me, I then planned my own agenda. Thankfully, through your obedience and planning under the authority of the Holy Spirit my time here was not exactly what I anticipated but much, much more than I could have imagined. I have been drenched with his love reminded that God is not only King of the Universe, mighty, sovereign, great Jehovah but He is my Abba. I have wept over how He loves me and have gathered a long list of how he has lavished me with his love (Don’t you love that word – lavished). I have been able to not only experience the head knowledge but more abundantly the heart knowledge that “the everlasting (and unchanging) love of God lasts forever.”

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Springs North - April 2009

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The Lord meets us individually

How did the Lord use The Springs in your life?

"As I was in solitude, reading a book I had borrowed, the realization of the presence of God came over me and for the first time I knew my name was written in heaven. I wept by myself with the Lord."

"To quiet and calm my heart. To instruct me in the way that I should go."

"This time was like a cup of cold water to my soul. I loved meeting new people. I loved my small group and our meal times/prayer. I have been refreshed and reminded of the quiet place. God is good. Thank you for your service to us!"

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What's The Springs like?

We asked the women who came to the Springs how they would describe the retreat to others who had never been. Here's what they wrote:

• Chapel times, meals, instructive meetings, amidst times of silence and solitude.
• Only come if you’re serious about hearing from God and wanting to be loved.
• God giving you a gift of time with Him and you giving God a gift of your time.
• Have you ever longed for more time for your time with God – a day that you could study or pray without interruption? Then The Springs is for you!
• A time of physical rest and spiritual awakening, focused on your relationship with God.
• This has been a much needed “jump start” to listening and basking in God’s love. I feel spiritually renewed and energized.
• It’s a lot of alone time but some good group time also
• A time of renewal, rest and refreshment in the Lord. A time to be in the presence of God without any distractions or pressure – Laura
• Rest and restoration. Rest from our burdens and restoration for joining God in his work.

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