Eagle Rock Creative Retreat Center {...would you like some audio?...}
This is Eagle Rock Retreat Center’s view…every single day.
I was honored to be asked by the Creative Director at Eagle Rock (the lovely Amanda Gilooly) to teach art and keynote speak. Matt Tommy was also brought in via Zoom, but I had the privilege of showing up in person to do my thing.
Eagle Rock Creative Retreats did not disappoint. In any way, on any level.
The whole retreat was very well done, appropriately social distanced, yet somehow warm and inviting. I think my favorite part, besides the small classes, the students, and the views, was the worship team that Amanda booked for this event!
Allow me to introduce you to Scott Coats and The Barn Burners.
You’re welcome.
Teaching this retreat called forth things inside me I never knew I had.
Because three days before I came to Eagle Rock, I buried one of the lights and delights of my whole life, my daddy. All this, after watching months of his sharp decline, falls, hospital stays, rehab (in a time of COVID), and ending in a time of hospice where my husband and I were there with him and with my mother, not living there, but being there, all the way to the very end.
I’d had no time to prepare, at all.
Instinctively, earlier in this heart-rending process, I had called Amanda and told her I would have to do something I’d never done before - I’d have to renege on my commitment. My father’s impending death was devastating for me. She instantly understood and released me from everything.
But she called back.
She very sensitively and prayerfully asked me to reconsider (can you imagine the courage that took!) - because she felt the Lord wanted me there. Amanda felt strongly that I had something important to impart and to say.
So I wept before the Lord.
And He said, “Daughter. Go.”
See, I dream (figuratively…and literally) of a supernatural awakening in the hills and hollers of Appalachia. I will do anything to be smack-dab in the center of a historic outpouring of the precious Holy Ghost.
And so I lost my daddy. Next, I prepared my talk in less than two days. You are looking at a Bible teacher who often takes no less than 4 months to prepare for a women’s retreat. As for the art that I taught, I simply brought everything God and years of practice had forged inside me. I had to believe that I had been made ready, already.
I titled my teaching (if you follow me on Instagram, you already guessed it):
Beauty Defies Despair
And in it, I also unpack something I have coined “Drama, Trauma, and Trauma-Drama”. Shewwwwwwwwww. Hashtag #2020 , hashtag #fakefriends , hashtag #bless
Unbeknownst to me, someone in the gathering made a smartphone recording of my message. When I was done, several told me they would never forget it. One sweet lady, a professional photojournalist who has traveled the world, let me know in no uncertain terms that she felt I could hold my own as a speaker anywhere, in any setting.
Friends, that’s all God.
This is the recording that was taken that night. The quality is not great, at all. But if you turn the volume up, and apply some patience, I hope what the Lord gave me will radically transform your life and your creative practice:
