Release.

This whole week has been to least say amazing and yet extremely exhaustingThis is going to be a little corny, but I beleive I've grown up this week, if maybe it was only a little, I grew. Lets start by saying retreat was amazingly awesome. Many might have thought otherwise, but I took everything I learned and applied it to my life where I most needed it (understanding). When we first arrived @ retreat we all sat down in the main gathering room and we all talked to eachother, for many it was a first time to talk with people they had known for years, and never talked to. Then we went outside and just ran around and were stupid. Ahh fun...heh. But then later that night we went to confession. before we went in we were given the rules. This was the only time of the retreat that they demand complete silence, respect, and cooperation from each and every one of us. And I remeber lookin around the room at all of us thikning puh, yeah right like thats gonna happen. I looked around the room and saw (what I thought) was a bunch of kids that could care less about what these people were talking about, and could care less about anything that had anythingto do with religion. SO after the speech we were all given we all went into the chapel. The chapel is amazing. Very cozy, artsy, neat place. So as we go in, we find the chairs to be spread apart and all facing the middle of the room where a table stoody with a tall candle on it, and a bowl down beside it on the floor. As we entered we were given a piece of paper and a pen and told to sit in a chair. So as we all found a place and sat, music started to play. soft meaningful music. THe lights were off with only candles as light. We all started to write on our pieces of paper(our sins). I satand thought for a minute if I should really take this serioulsy, becuase I never truly had before. I always felt so uncomfortable with the sacrament of Reconciliation. But here I did not. So i began to write. I wrote every single sin that I had been afraid of saying before down on that little piece of paper. As I finished, I realized some sort of releif come over me. Some releif that I had not felt in a long time. THere they were everything that I hated about myself on a simple piece of white paper. How amazing that is. When I finished I looked up and decided to look aroudn the room. What I saw astonished me. Every single person was writing. But who I saw sitting around me in that chapel amazed me. I saw people who I had known for a majority of my life. I had known them since we were 6,7,8 years old in gradeschool just learning our alphabet. And here we sat toghether as 16,17 years old juniors in highschool preparing for the rest of our lives. Then I saw people who I had met in my first year of highschool who I had not taken the time to get to know. But here on the retreat I had my first chance to begin to get to know them. Then I looked in front of me and saw leslie. She turned and saw me looking at her and gave me a smile, and I smiled back. Here I sat with my friend, I suppose an old friend, but nevertheless a friend. We sat togheter in the same room for even maybe a short period of time, and I was sad. Not because of what she haddone to me, or what I had done to her. But because it was finally ok to sit in the same room and smile at one another. That it was finally ok for both of us to be happy. And finally it was ok for both of us to be happy for eachother. We all lived happily ever after, just not with eachother. She wrote that to me in our notes at the end. I will always cherish what we had, and will always pray to God that she remains happy and receives everything in life that she wants. And then I looked around me and saw my friends. I saw Sarah, and I thanked God for letting us become the friends that we are now. I thanked God for realizing I needed her in my life for me to ok and grow. And then I saw Joe Siebelts and looked at him and thanked God for letting me have such an amazing friend. A friend who gave me the gift of being myself. Through him I found myself and what kind of person I could be. And then I saw Natalie, I thanked God for giving me her as a friend. For having a friend who could broaden my horizons. A frined who taught me much more than any other 16,17 year old kid has the ability of knowing. And I saw Jo Ro. And I saw how happy and content he looked. And I thanked God for letting Joe be happy. And for hime being who he is, and having the ability to listen and talk with me. After I looked around the room. I got up and confessed my sins to the priest, I came out of confession and sat down and watched everyone slowly get up and burn their sins. I soon burned my sins, and they were gone. -Lindsay