I found myself feeling tired and overwhelmed by my schedule and parenting struggles. That may not sound like anything unusual to you and it certainly is my life most days. But one day I mentioned to a friend how nice a 24 hour silent/worship/prayer retreat would be. A time to be refreshed by His Spirit. She thought it was a great idea, which got the ball rolling.
I ended up going on a 21 hour personal retreat that I planned myself and it was wonderful! It involved traveling to an AirBnB about 40 minutes away with lots of reading, praying, worshipping, silence, and journaling.
When I got back a few people asked me how I planned it and what I did, so here are some tips and takeaways from my retreat if you want to do your own personal retreat with Jesus.
Pray about finding a friend to do it with (unless the focus would end up being solely friend-time and not Jesus-time)
Pray about what God wants to do through, in, and around this retreat.
If schedules are too hard to line up an overnight trip, try a prayer hike in your city. I did this with my friend the morning of the day I left for my retreat and it was the best way to start the day! We hiked while praying about everything that we talked about. Metaphors flooded my mind of lessons that nature teaches about God and his people.
Make expectations very clear of what you both expect the retreat to be and what you hope to get out of it.
There are retreats through churches and things like that, that are more structured, if you want to go that way.
It’s ok to do it alone. That’s what I did.
Choose a date
This was a hard one for my busy schedule! Sometimes time needs to be carved out and things need to be said “no” to, to make a retreat happen.
Choose a place (Don’t let the place be the end goal. You can spend time with God anywhere.)
Jesus often found a quiet place to pray.
I, personally, wanted nature to be a significant part of the location because I feel closest to God there.
I did an Airbnb and it was hard to find one that wasn’t a 2 night minimum, one that wasn’t too expensive, and one that didn’t have too many “fancy” amenities that might distract from the purpose of the retreat. I did a lot of researching and ended up at one that I could imagine being at when looking at the pictures. It was a stressful time finding a place, but I felt a huge relief after I had it booked. I realized I had put too much stress on finding the “perfect” place.
If you have a friend you could borrow a place from, look into that. I personally was ok with the cost because I was sacrificing something by doing this.
I ended up at a cute cottage about 40 minutes away on a hill with a good view of the sunset. They gave me a discount for a friend for the next year so let me know if you want that!
Don’t go with any expectations or to escape
I knew that I could and would spend time with God before and after the retreat. There was nothing special about this place or this time, except that I was saying to God, “This is for you. I’m listening.”
I didn’t put any expectations on myself for how I’d be upon my return. I wanted freedom for the trip to take whatever form God wanted.
Don’t be legalistic about what you do there (bring materials, let God lead)
Ideas - a Christian book on parenting (I did Habits of the Household by Earley and some of Secrets of a Prayer Warrior by Prince, Bibles in different translations (I had NASB, The Message, and Remedy), highlighters, pen, notebook
Turn off your phone
Enjoy nature
Enjoy silence
Write stuff down
I ended up spending some time focused on remembering and redefining my mission of parenting, specifically focusing on patience in parenting and letting God take anger out of my parenting. I wrote in my journal what I think my household looks like now, what I’d like it to look like, and took some keywords from that to make a type of mission statement for my purpose in parenting. I’ve now hung it up in my house. It was a beautiful thing to be able to have a long period of silent time to reflect on what I want my household to look like and what my mission looks like.
Be on the lookout for people to love
You never know when God will put someone to love in your path. A retreat is not a reason to stop looking outward. Since it was just me, I ended up inviting the B&B hosts to eat breakfast with me when they brought it over to my cottage.
Return home and tell someone about what God revealed to you.
Be aware that the enemy might take the opportunity when you return from special, set apart time with God to steal, kill, and destroy the good that you received on the retreat. Plan some shorter times after the retreat, if you can, to go back over what God showed you on the retreat.
A couple tips: Do something that stretches you. I don’t like traveling alone and the sounds I heard in the middle of the night weren’t great to face alone. But they were just the house settling and it was good to stretch myself.
I decided to enjoy myself, even if the unexpected happened.
Consider the drive to the retreat as part of the retreat - prepare a worship music playlist or have silent time in the car.
Let your kids see you plan the trip and tell them why you’re doing it. I thought my kids would ask me to stay and not go, but they were fine with me leaving. They had some special things to do with Dad and knew that I was going to spend time with God. My oldest even decorated the house to celebrate my return! He made it look like Big Bend National Park, which we had traveled to a few weeks before, with colorful paper to mimic a sunset on our first floor, and black paper with stars to represent the sky on our second floor. Such creativity!
My retreat experience will not look like your retreat experience. And whether you plan a personal retreat or not, I pray that you seek Jesus whenever your soul needs a little refreshing. He’s like water for a dry and thirsty throat!