I’m planning a women’s retreat.

Did you hear how casual that sounded coming out of my mouth?

Well this is what my heart said last night about 2 a.m.

I’M PLANNING A RETREAT!

Honestly, just like those movies where people wake up from a nightmare, I sat straight up in bed with my heart hammering.

It’s one month away. My office is piled with papers, lists, decorations, and gift items.

I love women’s conferences and retreats. It’s just that I usually show up to speak at them.

I will never meet another women’s retreat coordinator without throwing my arms around her and telling her how much I appreciate her. I have been dipped and dunked in their role and realize there are two thousand details to take care of when planning a retreat.

There’s checks to write (lots of little and big ones — faith, faith, faith, Suzie).

There’s worship and activities and down-time and reflection questions and food restrictions, and plug-in outlets needed for CPAP machines (a whole new world for this girl, who knew?).

There’s flight arrangements and making sure that people actually get to the retreat.

There’s messages to prepare and gift boxes and . . .

You see where this is heading, don’t you?

Swirling down the road called overwhelmed.

So last night I laid back down. I whispered these words to calm my own heart:

Lord, what a privilege to do this

Jesus, thank you for those who are helping

Tomorrow I’ll work, tonight I’ll rest

This is going to be so incredibly fun, isn’t it?

For once I get past the overwhelmed feeling, I can settle into excitement and that moves me to an entirely new path.

That’s when I discover the more.

I’m walking down the road with Jesus, instead of swirling down the road I call overwhelmed.

Fifty-five women that I call  my beautiful #livefree friends are flying and driving in from all over the nation. We’re spending three days together exploring what the invitation of “Come With Me” means.

We’re hiking. We’re zip lining. We’re riding horses.

We are digging deep together to understand what it means when Jesus says:

Come with me, wherever I lead, whatever I ask you to do

We’ll ask God to change our our faith and who we are as we accept that invitation.

This all started a little over two years ago. I woke up in the middle of the night and wanted more — not more favor, not more things — I wanted more of him.

Whatever he asked me to do.

Wherever he wanted me to go.

No matter what he desired to do on the inside of me.

That was never intended to be a book, but it so changed me that I wanted to invite other women to that same transforming journey.

Come With Me: Discovering the Beauty of Following Where He Leads will be in bookstores on May 3rd.

Maybe like me, you love faith that is comforting but don’t want to settle for comfortable faith. {Tweet this}

Maybe you want a changed life over a charmed life.

Maybe you’ve been praying that your faith makes a difference in the world, especially to those within reach.

Maybe, like me, you want more of him.

As a result of saying yes the invitation to “come with Him,” I was changed. I’ve always loved the Lord, but my faith has never so perfectly fit.

For me, its taken place in a hundred different ways.

One is this retreat. Yet another will take me out of the country in a few weeks. I can’t wait to share more of that with you in the days ahead.

But mostly he’s just been asking me to sit with him. To listen as a disciple, rather than someone who calls herself Christian, and then to ask how his words play out in my everyday life.

And then to live it.

I don’t think I’m alone in the movement of women all over the world who are willing for God to change the way they seek God and see people, and to shed those things that make faith complicated.

I hope you’ll join this beautiful movement of accepting his invitation to go where He leads.

Whatever He asks.

Wherever He takes you.

Whatever He wants to do in you.

Suzie