Silence in a busy and demanding world

Silent Prayer Retreats have been a fea­ture of KBC’s min­istry pro­gram over the last few years and with the Men’s Silent Retreat com­ing up in Octo­ber, a few of the ladies take the time to com­ment on their exper­i­ences at a retreat.

Rest — at last!
I was chal­lenged last year when I felt God tell me to go to the Silent Prayer Retreat. Silence is not some­thing that comes nat­ur­ally for me. But I went any­way, and I did hear God whis­per to me in the midst of the silence. How­ever, after a day’s silence I was burst­ing and could barely wait to speak again. I left the week­end think­ing ‘well that was nice, but it wasn’t really me. I don’t think I’ll go again.’ So you can ima­gine my sur­prise when I felt God tell me to go again this year. I left work on the Fri­day in a rather frantic way. Work was busy. Life was busy. I was stressed to the max! A week­end away was not some­thing that I really had time for, yet God knew that it was some­thing I des­per­ately needed. After get­ting home late, I threw a few things into a bag before rush­ing off to get there. Rush, rush, rush! And then I walked into Mercy Place and there was peace. I stopped. It was so good to fi nally stop. Shortly after arriv­ing, I ran into a friendly face and was embraced, and that was it. Weeks and months worth of seem­ingly never end­ing demands finally spilled over into tears. I was worn out and fi nally I could stop. Finally I could get still and silent and alone. Rest, at last. Jesus’ words as recor­ded in Mat­thew 11 have always stopped me: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my bur­den is light.” A prom­ise from God to me; and to any­one who will go to Him.

I left the Silent Prayer Retreat this year refreshed and encour­aged. God spoke to me. He lif­ted my bur­den and gave me rest. He did a work on the inside as I took time out and made myself avail­able to Him. He embraced me with His love. He restored my soul.

And here I am again a couple months on. Life is still busy and stress­ful. And whilst I write this art­icle I can’t help but think that another time of silence away from my usual envir­on­ment wouldn’t go astray! Let us embrace the oppor­tun­it­ies to do some­thing that isn’t about per­form­ance but about rest. Some­thing a little out of the ordin­ary. Some­thing you may not have done or really enjoyed before. You may be pleas­antly sur­prised (as I was this year) with how much God can achieve when we don’t really do any­thing!
Kel­lie Brown

Fel­low­ship — more than just talk­ing!
I had never exper­i­enced or even thought of a silent retreat before, but the idea of a RETREAT soun­ded great. I am a wife and the mother of three chil­dren with our fourth on the way, and I thought I could do with a day apart. Seem­ingly my hus­band thought so also, as he agreed to do all the run­ning around that Sat­urday. We had been attend­ing ser­vices at KBC on and off this year and had met a few people, but I did have a chuckle at the inform­a­tion let­ter stat­ing the hope that we would have a good time of fel­low­ship — all without talk­ing! It just goes to show that fel­low­ship is more than talk­ing, as I felt a deep spirit of fel­low­ship, even with women I had never seen before, per­haps because we had each taken the time out to seek God together.

I have often struggled to main­tain the dis­cip­line of a reg­u­lar ‘time out with God’, even before hav­ing a fam­ily, and it was refresh­ing to use silence and solitude to be avail­able to hear God’s Spirit speak­ing into my life. Not only was it a good oppor­tun­ity to lift my hus­band and chil­dren to God in prayer and bring my bur­dens to Him, but I really felt God was want­ing to speak to me in love and encour­ag­ment. It was like I only kept the door of my heart open a little, but God was want­ing to bless me more than that, and all I needed to do was open the door a little wider, then a little wider still. In the gen­tle­ness of the day, God was speak­ing to my heart, not so much of His great­ness and power, but of His gentle love for me, to cleanse and to heal me, to build me up and encour­age me. It was then that the scrip­ture from Eph­esians 3:14 – 21 really spoke to me about ‘God strength­en­ing with power through his Spirit in the inner being’ and I was able to pray this scrip­ture in inter­ces­sion for people and situ­ations extend­ing from my own home and fam­ily. Thanks be to God. It really is God Him­self in the Spirit who leads us and draws us deeper and closer to God the Father and the Son. The time and space were lovely — many thanks to the work­ers at the Mercy Centre. Also, the thought­ful­ness and care of those facil­it­at­ing the day was evid­ent, from the wel­come at KBC through each of the sta­tions we could choose to spend time at.

I would surely love to attend another retreat, but more than that, the women’s silent retreat has given me a greater hun­ger to be still in moments through the day, and REMEMBER THE LORD. I want to keep open­ing that door wider to Him who, as it says in Rev­el­a­tion 3:20, stands at the door and knocks want­ing to come in, be with us and share a meal with us. I am encour­aged that Jesus wants to come and be with me, but He also wants me to be with Him where He is too.
Leah Rae

Heal­ing and for­giv­ing time
For those who may not know me – keep­ing silent is not the easi­est thing for me. I love being around and social­ising with oth­ers. My latest silent retreat was my third time to exper­i­ence this awe­some rela­tion­ship with our Father in Heaven. Each time I’ve thor­oughly enjoyed this spe­cial time with God. Away from the hustle and bustle of life, away from the “Mum please can I do that? Mum can I please have this. It’s just God and I. He gets to have my sole atten­tion for a change, Hav­ing a young fam­ily, attend­ing the one-​​day Silent Prayer retreat was the most suit­able option for myself in 2009. For me this latest Retreat was a heal­ing and for­giv­ing time. Unfor­tu­nately, in Janu­ary of this year I was in the midst of major depres­sion and had to be taken to hos­pital to recover. How­ever, I soon learned God had a real pur­pose for me. This was revealed clearly in the Silent Prayer Retreat. This time not only allowed me to come to terms with what I exper­i­enced but what real pur­pose He had and who I needed to forgive.

As Chris­ti­ans, Jesus wants us to have real lov­ing rela­tion­ships with oth­ers. If we hold onto un-​​forgiveness towards oth­ers we are not able to con­tinue to be real in our rela­tion­ships and ensure we live our life with pur­pose as God inten­ded it to be. I real­ised too, how we often miss the beauty in simple things cre­ated for us to enjoy, like a flower emer­ging from its bud, the wide expan­sion of trees nestled in the side of a hill. We miss these simple things as we are caught up in the busy­n­ess of life. I urge you next time you are walk­ing to work or driv­ing the car, look at the beauty the Lord has cre­ated for us to immerse in every­day. I thor­oughly enjoy the silence des­pite being an extro­vert. I have learned to “Be still and know that I am God”. This rein­forces the import­ance of tak­ing time to just listen, not talk or be busy. We are all too good, espe­cially myself, at immers­ing in busy­n­ess. In these serene times take hold of this – talk to your Father in Heaven. He knows what we feel. He hurts when we hurt. He allow us our life exper­i­ences of hurt, sor­row, great times and fun times for us to grow in char­ac­ter and become at least a little bit more like Him.

I would highly recom­mend a Silent Prayer Retreat espe­cially if you nat­ur­ally enjoy your own space. It allows you to not just enjoy silence for your­self but with our mighty Father. If you are an extro­vert, enjoy chat­ting to any­one and being busy, then take hold of these times to spend with just God. It allows no inter­rup­tions of phones, com­puters and our biggest inter­rup­tions – people. My first exper­i­ence on the whole week­end Silent Prayer Retreat I recently had my second child. I took hold of this no inter­rup­tions, had a beau­ti­ful exper­i­ence with the Lord and fell into a deep slum­ber. When I woke I felt renewed in His spirit.

So to all those busy mums who think they are not able to be away from their fam­ily, as they are needed at home — let God be your centre. Let Him take con­trol of you in your silence with Him. It is in the quiet exper­i­ences with the Lord Jesus Christ that I have been renewed in strength and mind to enter back into my “crazy” world at home with a lov­ing devoted hus­band, two beau­ti­ful boys, my gor­geous dog, a kit­ten, our budgie and fish. After tak­ing care of all this for God I do get exhausted and I need a break in silence to reflect, pray and learn. Next time you see a men’s or women’s Silent Prayer Retreat advert­ised – sign up and put time aside for God and you will be pleas­antly sur­prised.
Melissa Kendrick

MENS SILENT PRAYER RETREAT
30 Octo­ber — 1 Novem­ber
Does the busy­n­ess of daily life and the noise and crowding of mod­ern soci­ety leave you won­der­ing how to find enough time and space to develop your rela­tion­ship with God? Does this busy­n­ess, noise and crowding cause frus­tra­tion because it runs counter to your pref­er­ence for greater intim­acy with God? If you identify with this, per­haps the Mens’ Silent Prayer Retreat is the answer. For more inform­a­tion con­tact KBC.