TMF - Women's Retreat - Hualian - Day 2

       Our second day in Hualian was a very beautiful day which was amazing because the forecast called for rain all day on Tuesday.  We were happy about that!  For me the retreat wasn't necessarily about listening to the speaker but it was about being surrounded by women who might not necessarily be going through the same situations that I am going through but they go through the same struggles that I go through - struggling with balancing family and work, struggling with am I doing enough or too much, struggling with what's best for our kids, struggling with missing family and friends back in our home countries.

      I was thankful for the opportunity to talk through some things to people who would lift me up in prayer, people that I was able to share things that I might not be able to share with others.  

I was also thankful for the afternoon of going to a pebble beach and just walking around.  Then playing with the rocks - making monuments, finding unique rocks, throwing rocks into the ocean, digging for rocks and of course talking to each other about anything and everything.  I tended to experiment with taking pictures of everything.  I just decided to play with my camera because I wasn't having to worry about what my kids were doing and I could just fiddle around with the setting to my hearts content.

         So thankful that it worked out that I was able to go to the retreat because I was able to get to know some of the ladies that I really didn't know very well.  I was able to recover from all the stress that I've felt was on me and I was just able to get a fresh perspective in my life and realized that even though I might not understand everything that is going on in my life...God has a plan and I just need to wait for him to reveal himself to me. 

 Seeing palm trees without buildings surrounding them was fun!  Also just seeing the random pack of dogs hanging out around the pebbles just amused me.

 I loved seeing the beams of sunlight streaming through the clouds...it some ways it reminded me of the beauty of Ireland when we would always see those gorgeous beams of light.