February/March Conferences and Retreats Part 3

My final entry for this little series of Special Weekends, I wish I would have done this the other way around because now in April I'm forced to try and remember the beginning of February! :)

Our first Youth Retreat in many years was held at Michindoh where we have our annual summer camp. We love this camp ground and the staff is always really kind and helpful. We went for a quick overnight stay and had so much fun. We enjoyed fantastic food, a fun hayride under the beautiful stars, making spam sculptures, and playing broom ball on the ice!

Along with all the activities we were also enormously blessed by the messages presented to us by Dan Armstrong. We were challenged through God's Word to identify
and overcome the idols in our hearts. Idols that are not necessarily in a physical form, but rather are evident in our sinful heart attitude. What is an idol? Anything that takes the place of God in our lives and anything that we are willing to sin against God to get.

We were each given a notebook and time to talk to God one on one and confess our personal idols and to raise our flag of surrender and ask God to become more beautiful to us than our sin. We studied James 4:1-7 in which we are given the steps to overcoming idols.

James 4:1-7
"Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn, and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up."

Dan emphasized the need to be truly broken about our sin and not to just feel remorse, but to express genuine Godly sorrow. Until we are truly Broken and Humbled we will not be Changed!

Nothing about the fight to Love God more than anything is easy and that includes the fight to get rid of the idols in our lives. However with God's help, It is possible!


James, Heather, Rebekah,and I were given the opportunity to lead worship at the Retreat and the song, "Give Us Clean Hands" quickly became the theme song for the event.

This song is taken from Psalm 24: 3-6,
"Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false. He will receive blessing from the Lord and vindication from God his Savior. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face, O God of Jacob. Selah"


This is the group of girls that I was able to lead in a short devotional on Friday night. The Lord was really working in my heart during the time that I was preparing for this and showing me where I needed to be changed.

Overall this Retreat was a HUGE blessing in all our lives, we had a wonderful time and I am so thankful!





- Amanda Marie