Revelation & Belly Laughs

Have you ever played Telestrations? 

Have you ever played it at a women's retreat? If you haven't, you have no idea what you're missing. Unless you're a man. Then you really have no business being at a women's retreat. None. Whatsoever.

I was first introduced to this hysterical game at our retreat 13 months ago. Our speaker, who has since become one of my closest confidants, brought it with her. I was skeptical. Telestrations is like the love child of Pictionary and Telephone. I've never been good at Pictionary.

But we played. I laughed. I called my mom up and insisted she buy it for her own women's retreat which was approaching. I asked for it last Christmas. You cannot, simply cannot, play this game without laughing so hard you cry. Or injure a stomach muscle. Or both.

Yesterday, during our retreat free time, we played. One person gets a word. She writes it on page one of her dry erase booklet. She passes it. The next person looks at the word and then attempts to draw it. The next woman looks at the picture and writes the word or phrase she thinks it is. The next one draws it. And so on and so forth.

My friend, Christy, wrote the words "spin doctor" and passed it on. By the time it got to me, I read the words "surgical saw" and drew a guy on a table. Standing over him with an enormous saw was a stick figure with a surgical mask on. I drew an arrow to the saw. I also added a tray table at the end of the bed and intended to put smaller surgical tools on it but the tip of the pen was too fat. I passed my booklet on. 

"Vasectomy" is what my friend wrote before passing it on to another woman in our church.

She then drew a very, ahem, well endowed fellow and a giant pair of scissors. The next woman got it and guessed correctly (based, of course, on the most recent picture). Christy got it back, opened it up to the last page and began laughing hysterically. As she showed us each page, we were already giggling. By the time we saw the first "vasectomy" we were all laughing so hard we were crying. Then we saw the drawing. Kleenex had to get involved.

If this doesn't sound funny to you, I encourage you to play the game. I promise you'll laugh so hard you'll cry.

We do other stuff at retreat too.

We hear from the Lord. We fellowship. We eat way too much chocolate. We pray. We have quiet time with our Savior.

God's been rocking my world lately with the realization that I don't really know how to pray. I present my requests. "God, heal this person. God, heal that person. God, help with this. God, help with that. Amen." For several weeks now the Lord has been revealing to me that my requests need to come last. First, and foremost, my prayer life is about worshiping Him. Of course, our speaker spoke on this very subject last night. And I was impacted. Anything that brings us nearer to the Lord is good and worthy of praise. Even the bad stuff. We need to pray accordingly.

There is time for food and fellowship and chocolate and sleeping and snugly pajamas and conversation and making new friends and keeping old friends and there is, indeed, time to learn about our God. After all, He's the reason we do this every year.

But we also laugh. Deep, belly laughs with fellow believers, who endeavor to walk, every day, with the perfect and Triune God. I can't tell you how refreshing a weekend characterized by revelation and belly laughs is.