A Retreat...

Last night, I was thinking about retreats. A lot. Before this COVID-19 thing started, I was thinking I need to get out of here for awhile and go be elsewhere to collect myself. Not ‘find’ myself – because we don’t actually ‘lose’ ourselves… – but to collect myself. Every retreat I’ve ever been on, even the scrapbooking one I went on in 2005, had a ‘theme’ of sorts.

Every single one. (= That got me thinking, I was going to go be with God for a few days out in the wilderness, but the people I was going to go do it with, they didn’t get a chance to get back to me when I’d left them a message, because the COVID-19 virus started hitting our country, too. Understandably, that retreat wasn’t meant to be, and I’m okay with that. Everything, literally, that I was going to do with those beautiful ladies, I can easily do here at home.

But, having never done a private retreat before, let alone one on my own, I was at a loss as to what to do, where to even start.

So.

I decided, let’s see what DuckDuckGo has to offer (that’s the search engine I use), and I came up empty-handed trying to find one that appealed to me after over an hour of searching and clicking and going, ‘But! But!’

Someone I know in a peripheral sense suggested Fr Gaitley’s 33 Days of Morning Glory, but … I’ve already done that one a couple of years ago, and not only that… it’s not a retreat, per se, but something a bit different (even though it says ‘retreat’ on the cover), and nonetheless, I’ll be honest with you: I don’t care much for his approach. There was no … connectivity there. It was just thumbnail after thumbnail of really cool facts. No … connection to our Mama, and that was supposed to be the entire point of that little DIY ‘retreat’ thing. I got some interesting information from the book, sure, but the thing I was going for, just didn’t happen for me.

And that’s okay.

Sometimes, that just happens. Some people get something out of something that others just don’t. Doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a bad thing, just … yeah.

Which brings me to the entire reason for this post! I’m so excited, I’m vibrating and can barely type! So, please, I beg of you to bear with me.

Author Toni Morrison (I know OF her, but I don’t read her genre) once famously stated, ‘If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.’ Hey, to be fair, while it’s rare enough as it is that I bother with fiction, she’s got a point!

Since I couldn’t find a retreat that appealed to me, I’m going to write one. It’s going to be a Marian retreat about Mama’s Immaculate Heart. I don’t know how long it’ll take, but I’m really excited about this upcoming project, because it’s going to help not just myself draw closer to our Lady, but it’s also going to, once it’s finished, help others draw closer to her and get to know her and love her as much as I do. That’s the goal, anyway!

I ask that you please pray for me as I start this adventure, and know that I’m praying for you all, too, that when this is finished, when I’m able to publish it, that I’m able to introduce you to a Mother who loves you beyond comprehension and understanding, and that she will touch you all in a way that she touched me in a very real and personal way.