I don't know if you have ever looked at something and instantly felt the impulse to cry. Not something sad, but something beautiful, something so full of glorious beauty and wonder that you are overcome by an indomitable urge to fall flat, tears streaming down your face induced by the mere majesty of God's creation. If you haven't, you need to come to Washington and take a drive through the Snoqualmie Mountains. It is impossible not to glimpse God in this place, especially when it is covered in snow.
This past weekend I had the pleasure of accompanying about thirty women to our women's retreat at the Sahalie Lodge in Snoqualmie Pass. It was a two-day get away for the women of the Commons, when we escaped life for a brief moment and spent some time in community with each other and God in a stunning countryside covered in nearly three feet of snow. I have seen many breathtaking sights in my life, but very few compare with the mountains we could see only a few feet outside our lodge windows. It is hard to be distracted from God's majesty and power in one such a place.
It was wonderful to get to know some of the women a bit better and to meet a few new ones. We had a speaker friend of Amy's come in to speak three times over the span of our trip. She spoke from the passage in 2 Corinthians about our treasure being hidden of jars of clay, saying that we are all fragile, chipped, and cracked jars of clay. We all have our cracks, our hurts, our hardships that make us who we are. But the wonder of it is that God chooses us as vessels for his treasure, creating in us an unbreakable foundation. We spent most of our time in worship, discussion, and Bible study, with some sledding, snowball fighting, a movie, and games sneaked in during free time. I felt blessed beyond measure to be there in the presence of God with a group of such wonderful, cracked, hurting, and healing jars of clay that are the women of the Commons.
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