It's been a week since Russ and I's spiritual retreat at Well of Mercy, and of course, this week has been pure hell. Literally, straight from Satan. And I am not kidding. He usually does attack after some profound experience with the Lord. Believe me, I already need another retreat. In trying to decide what to blog about, I settled on the retreat, rather than the details of hell week. Here are some photos of the serene surroundings at Well of Mercy where we were greeted by Sister Donna (the coolest nun in the world) after 2 hours of Nascar traffic. Believe me when I tell you that ALL the rednecks on the face of the planet were in Charlotte for what I consider to be the dumbest sport. I mean, when the participants crash and die on the regular, you might not want to call it a sport.

Anyway, everyone knows you don't go to north Charlotte during Race week, but Russ and I headed that way to get to our destination.

So we arrived, and tried our best to look like we were not on vacation taking advantage of the Well's nonprofit status, but on a serious spiritual comtemplative journey.

Didn't take us long to be the weekend hoodlums at the retreat. I mean, we thought everything was fair game in the Well's common area refrigerator. I mean, hello, didn't you go to college and have college roommates? Everyone knows you are supposed to mark your name on what you don't want eaten. Otherwise, it is fair game. So, yeah, Russ and I cooked ourselves up a big hearty breakfast with another guest's food, and just as we were savoring the crisp bacon, she came down with her own pan to cook her bacon and eggs. Oooppps! Luckily she was a nice lady who knew how to share.

Truly, Russ and I had a wonderful time. We enjoyed reading, praying, walking, laying in hammocks, resting in the jacuzzi tub. It was fabulous. We started studying a book called Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerrichs. To sum it up, it describes how a wife longs to be loved and cherished and men long for respect. It explains that married couples get into what the author terms a "crazy cycle" when the husband is unloving to his wife, and the wife responds with disrespect, which in turn makes the husband more unloving, which makes the wife disrespectful, and on and on it spins. Russ and I are learning lots about our own little crazy interactions. I've been asking Russ all week, "Are we on the crazy cycle right now?," and whenever Russ makes me mad I say, "Now, don't make me get all crazy cycle on you!" Somehow, I don't think that is how we are supposed to apply the principles, but we sure have had lots of laughs, even with the hellish week from hell. Did I mention it was hell? Just believe me and pray.