YMC Retreat

This retreat becomes one of those retreats when God reveals his underlining purpose unto me for the past weeks' struggles and also explains himself not allowing these struggles to happen. It has been a retreat that I would have to admit that it has been the best SFX retreat I have ever attended. This has been the best SFX retreat in terms of receiving God and not in terms of serving God. It was a retreat where I really dreaded going for, but I went in obedience. This is a fact within the depths of my heart that no one knew of. And in many ways, I have given everyone a reason to believe that I was looking forward to this YMC retreat.

Throughout the whole process of the build-up to this retreat, I knew that God had just wanted me to get the youths excited because God promised that he would show up at the retreat and would grant the desires that lay within the hearts of the youths attending the retreat. Hence, I decided to do my part to facilitate an expectation to well up within the hearts of the youths. I really thank God for using me in this area before the start of the retreat.

But at the very start of the retreat, I just felt so extremely exhausted in my heart. It felt like there was nothing within my heart and also a cry to receive God lay deep within me too. Then I just told God a few moments before mass, "Lord, I'm tired". Thankfully, as the retreat started with evening mass, I just surrendered my physical & emotional tiredness unto God and asked God to use me as he pleased, as well as a request to be even more selfless to all those God would want me to minister to. After mass, I just felt a little bit better and I guess I just chose to neglect all forms of tiredness within my heart & body.

Throughout the whole retreat, there was this immense desire among the SFX youths to receive the Love of God and really experience a new level of intimacy with Jesus! The Holy Spirit just got stronger and stronger as the retreat progress. The worship was really so heavenly and in there was only 1 worship leader in all the worship sessions, 'The Holy Spirit'. At the second worship session, which was on Saturday morning, God revealed what was happening in the middle of that worship session. God revealed that hearts were rising up to the heavens towards God. And at that moment, I just knew that God had something special planned for all of these SFX youths. This was going to happen because they gave God the openness of their hearts and that was all God needed.

The night session was simply amazing. The Spirit was so strong and the river of God's unconditional Love was just waiting to be released unto these youths. The session was filled with hearts being touched & healed by the Love of God. As I was in a prayer team doing the praying-over, I too received God through the very witnessing of the conversion of the hearts I was praying over. And from each one, God captivated each heart with his love. Praise God.

And when my prayer team has finished with our last youth to be prayed-over, I thought that was how this night would end. But God had this amazing plan to minister to me. God had been waiting for this moment for 5 months. God knew the weight of the struggles that I was bearing. God knew that I had been doing many many things in the obedience of the Will of God. And as soon as my prayer team prayed-over the last youth, I went to a station where it was about the word 'Given'. As the rest of the youths were in the middle of worship, I just sat down at that station and about a min, I started to weep and cry. But I cuddled myself in a position where I lay head on my left knees. Hence, this made it difficult to see that I was weeping and crying.

In this moment, I explained to God about the immense pain I felt within my heart, as well as the difficulty of doing his will. I sat in that position for about 30 minutes. And for the 1st time in my life, God ministered to me directly. In this moment, there was no one else involved. It was a moment where God just embraced me in his arms and ministered to me. In many ways, the struggles had caused a need for my heart to be healed. And that was what God did for me in that moment, God healed me. This was a really intimate moment but I wouldn't say that it was a happy & joyful one. God just filled & healed me with his love again.

After this moment, I spent the next 40 minutes alone, walking in the silence of the night. I talked to God about everything and how I felt so unworthy of his plan for me. I also felt so weak. But God explained everything to me, accompanied with practical steps of what I would need to do. That moment when God ministered to me, God filled me with his love, of which would be sufficient to take me through all struggles. But God didn't take away the struggles. God made this fact very clear unto me during my walk with him. He said that he ministered to me because he knew that I needed to be ministered to, but he wasn't taking away the struggles, because those struggles are what I have to bear as the will of God unfolds unto my life. After all the alone time, I had a extremely long but beautiful conversation with Stephen until 4am. We had alot of fun with each other as we laughed and also shared about our experiences.

In conclusion, this retreat was one where it started of with my surrender unto God in obedience. But it ended with God ministering to me directly. Praise God for he has given me his love & strength to weather the upcoming storms. This retreat really just shows that God knows all that we are going through and he takes special notice of the things we do in obedience to his will. But in his time, he will feed us with his love & strength. We just got to have faith & trust that God knows what he is doing.

I will end of with a message that God has been reminding me of over the last 3 months,

"If I do my part and you do your part, then only will my plan for you reach its perfection!"

I Love you, my Jesus!!