Our 2010 Daily Lily Retreat, Designs of One’s Heart, was an amazing experience. Sara did a beautiful job teaching, showing and instructing her Lilies how to design their hearts. We all worked very hard each day to grasp what Sara was teaching. Needles did a beautiful job instructing us about how the human heart works. Debi and MG were amazing playing their guitar and piano. Rena was amazing. She fixed the toilet, the lawnmower and she prayed a powerful prayer over me using her beautiful intercessory gift. Each lily played a vital role in this life changing retreat. Each lily opened their minds and hearts to the Holy Spirit and amazing knowledge and wisdom fell from their lips. The fragrance of the words brought joy to my mind, heart and spirit. One particular day of our retreat, Sara spoke to us about the Garden of Renown. For homework we were to write about our Garden’s. As I was studying this homework assignment, the Lord placed something on my heart that I would like to share…
As I walked through this wonderful Garden of Renown, I noticed a beautiful stream flowing in the center. I ran to the stream, wishing to take a drink. I kneeled by the moving waters and saw my reflection. Is that really me, I asked myself or a small child. Then I realized the stream revealed my image as Jesus saw me. A small child slowly growing. Still learning my ABC’s. Learning how to talk, walk, run and skip. Crying out for my Father when I’m afraid of the dark. Still growing…..Still learning…… He sees me as one of His Lady Slippers in this garden. “Oh Lord”, I cried, “I am growing, working, praying and studying. Oh Lord can’t I be a beautiful Sunflower, tall and strong. Lord will you help me? Will you help me transform? Lord I can’t do it without you.” Jesus smiled and said “My little Lady Slipper come back tomorrow and let’s see if you are ready. Rest now.” I could hardly sleep, so excited to grow and mature in this beautiful garden. So excited to learn more, to do more, to be more. Rushing to the stream the next day, I saw Him smiling at me. “My little lady slipper are you ready to take this step?” “Oh yes Lord! Help me plant my roots deep in the knowledge of your word and let me sprout wisdom to those that will listen and hear with their minds and hearts.” Jesus smiled, “You are ready.” Suddenly transformed into a beautiful Sunflower. So excited I said, “tell me where to start working first.” He gave me a list and said “when the items on the list are complete, then I will return and then you will be ready once more.” “Ready for what, Lord?” “When I return to the Garden, you will know. Until then work diligently, stay focused on the list and do not stop or grow weary until I return.” So this Sunflower worked day in and day out to complete the list. Never forgetting the love the Sunflower felt for the Son of God. Never ceasing. As the last item was being checked off, I saw Him in the distance, walking toward the stream. “Lord, I have completed the list. I am ready to do what you ask of me.” With compassion in His eyes He said you are ready, transforming me into a tall strong Mimosa Tree. He smiled and said, “look around you.” I looked and saw little Mimosas all around. “Oh Lord, they are beautiful.” He smiled gently and He handed me a beautiful red Rose. As it left His hand, a thorn from the stem pricked His finger. With tears in His eyes, He looked at me, the blood dripping off the steam and He said, ” SHED FOR YOU.” As He walked away, I began to cry. ” Oh Lord, I’m sorry for all I’ve done to you, for all your pain that I’ve caused. How can you love me?” He turned to look at me and He smiled, ” It’s unconditional and it will never end. I will always love you. Now do the work that was meant for you, while there is time, because the time is short.” “Oh, I will Lord. Thank You. ” As He walked out of sight, I looked down into the stream and I saw a beautiful, strong Mimosa tree swaying in the breeze, smiling up at me…
Thank you Sara for you beautiful teachings, your home, and your love of Jesus and His Lambs. Thank you Lilies for all your hard work and all your beautiful love and compassion. Thank you Lord, for touching my mind, my heart and my Spirit and for loving me. Amen!!!!
thedailylily.com 
Chickenfarmer thank you for taking time to put your homework in writing that you shared at the retreat. I really appreciate reading this as it helps ‘bring to remembrance’ (one of the things Sara exhorted us to do from her teaching, Designs of One’s Heart) concepts from the lesson on Spring.
I don’t know what the list was that you had to complete in your story, but I do know that in reality you had your list of vital responsibilities you agreed to do for the retreat and you were faithful to do them…even when it meant staying up late, getting up early and packing a lot of things into a day. You and Needles provided us with an abundance of wonderful food. You wrote a great skit and made the props and we enjoyed seeing you and Needles perform it. And there were other things that you brought or said or did to add to the overall impact and living illustration of the Sara’s teaching and what the Holy Spirit wanted us to understand.
I was blessed to be a part of this retreat and experience Sara’s incredible teaching gift and the gifts of all the lilies that participated.
Yes! Thank you CF for sharing again that beautiful vision that you received in the Garden of Renown under the anointing that accompanied Sara’s prophetic and creative, spiritual teachings of the Scriptures in the Bible. You experienced what was Sara’s final 7th component in her teaching. LOVE. Jesus told you…”It’s unconditional and it will never end.” You got it!!! The Love of Jesus Christ/God which was the finale and yet the opening to a further chapter in the teachings that the Holy Spirit brings forth through His vessel, Sara.
Thank you, Sara, for a revealing and opening up to us to give us an understanding of how God has designed our hearts after His own and the stepping stones in acquiring a PURE HEART and a soft and pliable heart.
And CF….you are a delight and an angel! And you make good tuna salad, too.
Your skit showed that you flowed in the spirit with what our teacher, Sara, was setting before us. Right on! Thanks for being CF and..to quote our teacher, Sara, may your garden of renown flourish, “blossom and bloom”.
In our retreat, DESIGNS OF ONE’S HEART…Needles gave an amazing exposition on the human heart and its workings. It was very instructive and she was able to show the way the Lord has designed the human organ, the heart. Thank you so much Needles for that artful presentation. Gratefully, I learned many amazing things about the heart, and I was fascinated with your lesson.
Also, the chicken salad was divine and the pasta salad was incredible and we loved and enjoyed all of it.
God’s lilies are special and I miss you and CF a bunch. It’s like part of my heart is there with you and we love you, so much.
May God continue His work on YOUR hearts and bring you forth in your ministry of whatever proportion for His Kingdom.
Where does one begin, after experiencing one of the best retreats, yet! Sara’s illustration of one’s heart was “presented in the format of the four seasons of nature.” In the season of summer we learned from “the wisest man that ever lived, Solomon.” Read with me some scripture Sara had in our lesson: “Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones. Learn from their ways and become wise! Though they have no prince or governor or ruler to make them work, they labor hard all summer, gathering food for the winter.” Sara told us that “summer maintains us”. If we aren’t willing to learn from the ant, we sure won’t be maintained, will we?
No we won’t Needles. And we also learned that their is a proper technique to follow in order to maintain or preserve so we have to be very careful.
Allow me to quote some of my favorite lines from the teachings of Sara in the Lesson on “SPRING SHOWS US” from DESIGNS OF ONE’S HEART retreat. She is speaking about Spring and looking out the window… she sees “Little flowers PAINTING the LAUGHING soil.” I love that!! It stirs the imagination. Sara goes on to say that the “soil is laughing because of the little flowers!” In that garden of renown is where the betrothed calls to His bride-to-be, “Rise up, My fair one and come away with ME”, taken from the Scriptures in Song of Solomon.
In the WINTER Lesson she poses the question; “are your prayers a sweet aroma to the Lord? Are you praying….oh Lord I love You, I bless You? Or do you say”I’m just a lonely little petunia in an onion patch?” Sara admonishes us not to be wailing about being a” lonely little flower among smelly onion.” But to be fragrant blossoms before the Lord.
This is just a very small part of this exciting study. This teaching was delightful, colorful, dramatic, deep, deep, deep and with much revelation.
Mg told me via email that she and Rena shared some of their favorite parts of the retreat with Rena’s friend, Carla today! Said she would post here as well. Can’t wait to read.
While Rena & I were having lunch in an historical little town, yesterday, with Rena’s friend Carla from Louisiana and after the amenities were over…that is the choosing and ordering of our luncheon items, Rena turned to me instigating the conversation. “What was your favorite part of the retreat lessons?” she asked. We had spoken before to Carla, about the theme of the retreat…. how DESIGNS of ONE’S HEART compared the the physical heart and the spiritual heart with the Four Season. How God had given Sara the seasons in this order. Spring, Winter, Summer and Fall. Now, there are a myriad of things that I love about the study, DESIGNS OF ONE’S HEART. I thought (THOUGHT), ONE of my favorites was, Autumn. One of the reason liked is because Sara uses the vehicle of her mother’s prose and poetry to design the lesson on the “Harvest” moon, the proving of our hearts. Is there a harvest? Will we reap abundantly what we have sown? That is the PROOF of our journey and if we have fruit to reap. And in that lesson we studied briefly the Chinese Brush Painting and were able paint to literally paint a picture according to the directions on our paint boxes which we described to Carla.
Then I asked Rena what her favorite was and she replied, “Winter”. She described what we had learned about the movement of “words” going thru the ear gate and into the mind…processing and then into the heart and coming out through the mouth.
We quoted the Scripture, “Out of the abundance of the HEART, the Mouth speaks. Carla seemed to know that Scripture and agreed. Rena then said that came alive for her in a real process. She then went on to tell how this process is so important for realizing what is coming out of our mouths. We talked about “being quiet” (shutting up) when there were negative or derogatory remarks, quenching of the Spirit, etc. and I shared how the Holy Spirit had dealt with me, considerably, after this retreat and told me politely to “shut up” in my daily journal writings and Strong admonishments from my counselor, Sara. Carla acknowledged that.
Perhaps Rena will continue this narrative as there is more that she shared about hers. I did agree with her that Winter did move me, also, greatly in selecting the design of my heart and how WINTER did Tell me “a thing or two” about my condition of my spiritual heart and instructed me on what to do about it. Sara said in WINTER that we can judge ourselves by speaking forth the truth about what we see in the “reflecting pool” of our heart’s garden. What is our true character.
There’s more that Rena said, also, and I think Winter really did a number on all our hearts. Carla did listen. So it did go thru her ear gate. We hope she will be joining us next year as we prepare even now for next year’s retreat.
More to come….
I was able to meet and visit with Carla after work yesterday evening at Rena’s house. Rena asked me what my favorite part of the retreat lesson was and I said Autumn because it challenged, encouraged us to turn our eyes and attention outward to the harvest field..to others and their needs, not just to our own or our own looking to Jesus. Carla shared that the prison ministry she had been involved with taught, emphasized that also (my paraphrase).
I want to thank CF and Needles for the wonderful food at the retreat. I would also like to thank them for the care and concern and prayers they poured out.
When touring the Library of Congress yesterday they had little cherub like characters curved along the staircases. Each one had a particular job that was theirs. This reminded me of each person who poured in their talent so that the retreat could go on. I am sure that in future retreats we will see more talents come forth to implement bigger retreats.
I would also like to think CF and Needles for the wonderful skits. Each year we look forward to these with great delight, laughter, and spiritual review or introduction to the instruction which is led, guided, and orchestrated by the Holy Spirit through Pastor Sara.
I have shared with my friend Carla over the last week and she is now anxious to be apart of the retreat for next year.
Before the luncheon with MG I told her about all of you and the artistic versus artist or in the box versus out of the box. The artist person (out of the box person) I told her was one who was willing to change, update, and develop and who was always reaching to Jesus while the artistic (in the box box) was comfortable with staying just where he/she was. He/She is comfortable with what he knows rather than what he/she can learn. We talked a lot about this through reading updated materials about health, fashion, and the study either at lunch or on my patio, She wanted to hear more so when having lunch with MG I asked her favorite part. I told her mine was winter because winter instructs you. I loved that the mouth is a horn so to speak of what you have in your mind and is pumped out through the heart. Many times people speak to you and what they say is shocking. There was a term a while back that said something like this, Trash in trash out! The opposite is true of course. So when listening to people, listen to what is in their heart. Carla said that she realized this was very true and would be listening more carefully. We also talked about calling to rememberance all God’s promises that He has given us and how wonderful it is to think on these promises. Carla said she could not even imagine what life would be like without these promises – all hope would be lost. We also talked about focusing and enjoying the moment.
We applied this and with each store after lunch we found journals or cards that reminded MG or I of the retreat we just attended. Carla said it made her joyful every time we pointed this out to her. These were real WOW moments to call to our rememberance that God was in this retreat and that when He is working in the world He gives to all his artisans the same thing.
Carla enjoyed talking of her desire to do street ministry and her desire to work on areas the Holy Spirit is working on her to change so that the Lord may open the doors to where God wants to lead her next. We too pray the same for our lives and we add from Lesson 1, that we will be diligent, faithful, virtuous, knowledgeable, self controlled, persevering, full godliness – brotherly kindness, and love.
We pray that Carla’s son will be able to serve people and that Carla will be able to work in the harvest fields that she is so desirous to do.
Carla thanks you all for sharing the retreat with her. I would like to thank Sara for her perserverance and all the above traits and many hours of sitting before the Lord to bring this study to us from the Throne Room of God. Thank you!
Thank the whole team for making in come alive in all our lives.
Thanks, MG, Debi and Rena…Love hearing how happiness, love, peace and luck lives on and in each day.
CF…it was so exciting to be in your Church’s Bible Study with you as the teacher/facilitator, a few days ago. We saw the beginnings of the manifestation of your Holy Spirit giftings and your spiritual aptitude in explaining the Scriptures and what the Word of God is saying to us according to your church’s guide and your excellent examples in how to apply the Word that we were studying to our own lives.
You were faithful to your leadership and because of that we were all blessed and joyful and celebrating your gift with you.
Keep up the good work of the Kingdom. May God give you favor with God and man as you practice what you preach. God bless you and your family!
I just found out about this wonderful site from Chickenfarmer and Needles yesterday. We are getting ready to go to Camp Meeting at Happy Home. I will read more of your wonderful messages later. Hugs to all and have a blessed week. Kay
Kay,
So happy to have you, here on thedailylily. I am looking forward to the camp meeting today, and I can’t wait to see you there.
Hey Kay, so glad you are on the daily lily.See you at the camp meeting.
Hi Kay, Needles and Chickefarmer told me about you and the camp. Wish we were all there. Hope to see you often writing and sharing with us here.
Blessings on the meetings this week!
Glad to meet you on the Daily Lily, Kay!
And may The Lord pour out abundantly on each of you at the camp meetings.
KAY!! Welcome to thedailylily.org. We love to hear new and different comments concerning The Scriptures and our Lord and what He is doing in the earth right now…like that glorious camp meeting everyone is talking about and GOING TO. What a blessing to hear about the movement of the Holy Spirit. So glad to meet a friend of CF & Needles.
Hi Kay can’t wait to see you in person. We are so glad you are online with thedailylilies.