I've recently been very fortunate to be able to take the weekend off and relax for two whole days, thoughts of work and studies and job applications and emails put aside. I had the opportunity to disappear out of Newham, out of London, and into the arms of the people I love to just be with them and God and myself. How delightful.
The reason I'm writing about it is because I'm realising just how valuable "retreat" can be. I'm so lucky to work in an organisation that places a high value on stepping back from the working world. One of the ways they encourage it is during our retreat days, where all of us - the office staff, youth workers, students, apprentices, the guys at the top, EVERYONE - gathers together in a church somewhere, where we worship and we chat and we eat together and we have fun and in the evening we spend at least two hours reflecting and spending time in God's presence (sounds like a long time, I know, but it's actually pretty great). We also have amazingly supportive line management and teams, and regular pastoral support love. If you want to be looked after well, Christian charities do it beautifully.
Let's not pretend, though, that it's an added extra that we don't really need. As a gap year student doing youth work in London, I know the stress that it causes and I have a much lower level of responsibility than those more senior than me. I wish I could say that it was just on a whim that my bosses let me take Sunday morning off and encouraged me not to think about work for a few days, but it wasn't. Actually, it was the result of my stress levels getting super high, resulting in shaking, crying and hyperventilating in a university library in Lewisham.
I love what I do. I love my course, I love my organisation, I love the work we do and the young people we work with. I love East London more than words can describe. I used to think that if I felt like "I need to get out", then that would be a sign I didn't love it as much as I thought, and I'm really realising how untrue that is. Because as well as all of that, I love my family and my boyfriend and sometimes I even love Winchester and the countryside. They are my calming and homely influences in life, and even though I feel so at home in beautiful Canning Town. I need to have those other things back sometimes.
I've always found that I see God at work and feel his blessings the most strongly during times of crisis of some kind, or in the aftermath of it. I learn the most about myself and about where God wants me to be or what he's doing within me while I'm having the hardest time. There's no way, though, that I could take any of that on board if I didn't stop for a few moments (preferably quite a lot of moments) and reflect upon it, and actually have time to take it in. Our culture very much dictates that we should just keep going when we're stressed and somehow we'll get through, but maybe we should challenge that.
One of my favourite memory verses is Exodus 14:14, which says this: "The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still." What an amazing promise. My challenge for you this week is to take five when you need it. Or take ten, or dedicate an evening to yourself. You're worth it, and God's okay with it. I promise!
