Good morning…
“Meant to check in with you earlier!!” the Program Director from Ignatius House Retreat Center texted me on Thursday. “First overnight ISP retreat is Monday! Hoping you had it on your calendar…🤞🏼.”
Ugh! I had neglected to put the date on my calendar when I got the reminder back in January, but I immediately texted her back. “Will bring you 15 welcome bags for the women on Sunday.”
The Ignatius House website offers a detailed description and history of the ISP ministry:
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The Ignatian Spirituality Project (ISP) offers experiences of hope, healing, and belonging to men and women recovering from homelessness and addiction. By inviting our participants into a deeper encounter with the God of their understanding, ISP retreats and spiritual programs provide the encouragement and empowerment necessary to make real, transformative life changes. Today, ISP offers retreats, follow up and spiritual accompaniment programs in over 20 cities nationwide.
In 2007, Ignatius House Retreat Center in Atlanta began exploring a connection with the Ignatian Spirituality Project and held its first retreat for men in May of that year. A small team was formed and the first ISP women’s retreat was held in March 2010 and run by a number of dedicated lay volunteers. In 2017, Ignatius House assumed formal sponsorship of the ISP program.
Today, ISP Ignatius House-Atlanta offers up to 10 overnight retreats for men and women each year as well as follow up days of reflection. Out of their ISP experience, Ignatius House recently launched Kitchen Cura, an innovative vocational culinary internship that trains men and women recovering from homelessness and addiction in the culinary arts.
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Having been trained as a therapist and a spiritual director, over the years, I have volunteered for overnight retreats and days of reflection to support the experience of the recovering women in our community. Yet, over time, I have discovered the most precious piece of the puzzle I can offer for every ISP women’s retreat. With the help of our SueToYou written word community, we putting together welcome bags and homemade baked goods to greet the fifteen women in their private rooms for their overnight stay.
This time, between her Thursday text and my Sunday drop off, there was no time to coordinate donations from our generous group. Fortunately, I had a stash of beautiful, donated bags left over from the last year’s final retreat. Perfect. Then I reached out to one friend who regularly donates toiletry kits, and immediately she ordered fifteen kits to be delivered to my home on Saturday. Wow, what an amazing gift!
Then I went through our home and gathered various items I had collected for this project throughout the year. I ran to the store for a few needed items. While baking homemade chocolate chip banana muffins, I filled the fifteen bags. Toiletries. Journals. Pens. Crayons. Creative coloring sheets. Encouraging angel cards with Scripture verses. Sweet and salty snacks. Gum. Kleenex. Fuzzy socks. Chapstick. Emergen-C drink packs. A copy of our Scribbling a Masterpiece book. A copper heart to hang on their door knob, a symbol of God’s abundant love.
It felt like the bags almost filled themselves. I knew the Holy Spirit had taken over. Swept up in this labor of love, I rode the wave of God’s “ease, flow, peace.”
When I dropped off the fifteen bags and warm banana muffins, I snapped the photo above, and text it to the Program Director. “They are tucked in the resource center, with a little note of instruction.”
“Thanks so much,” she immediately replied.
Now, up in the middle of the night, I pray for each one of these special women who will leave their residential treatment facilities this morning, be picked up at the Marta station by volunteers, and then transported to the Ignatius House. May they also be swept up in God’s “ease, flow, peace,” as they experience therapeutic activities, enjoy transformative discussions, and savor the sacred grounds on the banks of the Chattahoochee River.
In prayer, I lift this blessing to these brave women, women I may never meet until heaven. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:16-19, NIV).
Strength. Power. Faith. Love of Christ. Fullness of God.
Might you join me in prayer today? Please, Lord, send the power of your Holy Spirit to touch the the inner being of these fifteen courageous women.
…Sue…
P.S. Ignatius House offers this retreat free of charge to these women recovering from homelessness and addiction. If you feel compelled to help offset the retreat costs, please scroll down to the bottom of this link to give a tax-deductible donation to Ignatius House Retreat Center. As you write your note, please identify yourself as a “SueToYou subscriber” so they can keep track of the amount our written word community contributes collectively.
