“In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.” – Albert Camus

I sat in the quiet of a simple room in the Madonna House in Washington, D.C. looking out the window with Bible and journal in hand, pen poised and ready.

I was alone. As a mother of three children 5 and under, it is hard to get alone time. At all. Even when you go to the bathroom. So the fact that I was here – that I actually made it – was a small miracle.

My original intention for this time was to plan – to put together a daily homeschooling schedule and read through all the curricula that I had so dutifully researched and purchased for the school year.

But God had other plans.

Pray Before You Plan

A few days before my “planning retreat” a friend told me she would like to come with me. “We could go to the Madonna House,” she said. I had never heard of it, but the more she shared the more I felt my soul sigh with relief.

A spiritual oasis on Capitol Hill, this humble row house is run by two nuns who have come here with no other agenda than to pray for the people in our city and open up the home to those who desire spiritual retreat.

The night before going, as I packed up curriculum and notebooks, The Lord arrested me with these words, “Put those away – just go there and pray.”

Whenever God shifts my plans like this, I get excited. I know He is going to speak or move in my life in a way that I hadn’t expected. I lay in bed that night smiling like a child on Christmas Eve.

The next day, my husband dropped me off at the Madonna House. Even as I stood on the steps, I felt the weight of the burdens I had carried there fall off my shoulders. I was going to meet with God.

My friend and I exchanged greetings and were directed to small separate rooms – rooms that held nothing but a bed, a desk with a Bible on it, and a dresser in the corner.

The simplicity of the place alone made me breathe easier. No scattered toys or piles of laundry. My soul began to breathe, too.

A Three Hour Retreat

I didn’t have 24 hours. I had a morning – three hours to be precise. But in those three little hours God met me in a deeply personal way, enlarging my perspective and graciously granting me the spiritual framework for our entire year of school.

I prayed over all three of my daughters and lingered long over each one, asking Christ for wisdom in how to teach and guide them.

He responded. Not with flames of fire but with soft, gentle whispers from His Word and Spirit that I would not have heard if I had not allowed my soul to get quiet enough to hear them.

I walked away entirely confident that God was with me and that He had given me His plan for our school year. I opened the curricula later with new perspective and purpose.

We often think we should plan and then pray about our plans, but we have it mixed up. Proverbs 16:3 says, “Commit your work to The Lord, and your plans will be established.

Why Should You Go on A Spiritual Retreat?

You should go because every soul needs moments of quiet and spaces to breathe, rest, recover from the scrapes and dents of daily life.

You should go when you have a big task, trip, move, step, leap, or transition ahead and you need to gain God’s wisdom.

You should go to simply refresh your soul with vision for the task and the call He has currently given to you.

You don’t need long – even a few hours will suffice. But just go – to a retreat center, a park, a beach, a lake, anywhere you know you can truly relax and focus. Your body, soul, and family will be glad that you did.