What retreats are good for

The good thing about retreats and Christian women's luncheons, if you're a speaker at them, is that they ground you in reality. In front of your computer screen in PJs day after day, you will imagine vain things. You will think that what the world needs now is expertise.

Then you get to the retreat, and in the course of the weekend, five or six women will come to you in secret like Nicodemus and share their problems. They will do this, I theorize, for at least two reasons: (1) they have an inflated view of the speaker; (2) they will never see you again, so you are safe. But the important thing to note is that you will learn in these twilight sorties that their problems are the same as yours.

The bad thing about retreats is that you can't very well go around giving talks on "the faithfulness of God as you stand on the promises" unless you are standing on the promises. I think at this point that I have gone about as far as I can go on theory, or recycled stories about what God did 300 years ago or 150 years ago in blessing the faith of men who trusted him like gangbusters. I need a personal testimony, beyond my not so sensational conversion story.