Giants

I’m going on a retreat soon.

It’s a women’s retreat.

It’s an “Encounter”.

An Encounter with God.

I’m eager to learn,
to listen,
to really hear.

I’m excited

to spend quality time with my girlfriends,

who are so much more than friends –

they are sisters

in every sense of the word.

{I’m scared, too.}

There are big, powerful giants living in this place I’ll be going.


I know I’m not strong enough to slay them. Not alone anyway. Not on my own power.


I wonder if I’ll be strong enough…brave enough…to allow God to lead me to this place. I wonder if I will be able, like David, to use the weapons that God gives me to slay the many giants charging toward me.


Taunting me.


Telling me I’m too small. Telling me I’m not good enough. Telling me to turn around and run back home with my tail between my legs.

Because I AM a runner.

When things get too hard and I have to stretch myself…I run.

When things hurt too much…I run.

When the fears loom heavily over me…I tuck my head way, way down…and I run.

I run with all my might to a place that feels safe. Where I am alone. Where I am in control.

But it’s cold there. I don’t like it and I don’t want to go there anymore. Ever again.






I want to be a conqueror. I want to stand tall, head up, shoulders back, weapons of God at the ready.


As I prepare for this battle, I fortify myself with God’s word. Reading Romans 8 helps me feel stronger.


In particular, Romans 8:37-39 speaks to my heart…soothes me:

“Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. “

I am a conqueror. No, God says I am MORE than a conqueror.

Through Him.

Who loved us (me).

This is my time. My time to stand tall in the shadow of my Great God who will “have my back”. To carefully and precisely take aim, and bring every giant to their knees.

One by one.
          Crashing to the earth.
                    Dead and gone, never to return.

I will be able to remove the well-worn patch over my broken heart that says “runner” (coward) and underneath will be a whole, healed heart consumed with love for God.

A heart that, with every beat, softly chants “con-quer-or, con-quer-or, con-quer-or”… watch out world…here I come.