eddie and judy.

In July, we took a weekend trip to Louisiana to the Parish Hermitage.  

Sounds weird, right? 

It's not, it's pretty much AMAZING.

The Parish Hermitage is a ministry ran by Eddie and Judy Parish in their home.  Eddie is an incredibly gifted therapist/counselor, cook, and worshiper... and Judy definitely has the gift of hospitality and is the most genuine, sweetest, open armed person, ever.  

So....it's like a retreat.  

Marriage. Family. Whatever needs to retreat. 

Us? We needed a marriage retreat.  

Not gonna lie, it has been a hard season.  

I was suppose to leave and cleave over three years ago, but i forgot to. 

or didn't want to. or didn't know how to.

This, plus five years of stuff, came to the surface, and it needed to get out.

There is no way I can sum up, on this post, all the past 8 months have entailed...but if you want to know...I'd love to talk about it.  I'm an open book and talking helps me process.

I can sum this up:  

I got mad at God. REAL mad.  Like, I didn't know I was capable of, mad.  He forgot about me.  He left me.  I felt abandoned. 

So, He let me get mad.  He let me do my thing.  He KNOWS me, way better than I know myself.  How much I can take, how I'm wired, how I think.

Things would happen, big and small and He would quietly speak to my heart.

He pursued me.  

He went after me. 

He wooed me.

Not in a loud, kinda way.  

In a way only He could speak to ME.

And thats where I am right now.  Learning to let Him love me.  Learning to trust Him.  Learning to really let Him clean me out.  Learning to give up CONTROL and receive HiS FREEDOM.

So the Parish weekend...

They live on a river in between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Their place is lush and beautiful and full of big trees.  They have a board walk on their property by the river.

They have a guest house.  Eddie came and met with us about four times.  He walked us through our story.  He helped us along the way.  He gave us incredible take aways and tools that we have found to be life saving in our marriage right now.  He loved on us and prayed for us.

Judy made us breakfast and lunch and we joined their family for dinners in their home.  Not just a normal dinner.  An INCREDIBLE dinner!  Like, steak with sauteed incredibleness on top, rolls, grilled veggies, fried okra kinda dinner. 

FANCY. 

Not stuffy fancy, but appreciation of GOOD food fancy.

We walked away from this weekend feeling...HOPEFUL and REFRESHED.  

At the Parish house, enjoying the RAIN.

This is Eddie and Judy with their children.

We looked around New Orleans before we flew home.  

After we took these pictures (with the horse statue and big pretty building) and left, we realized we had no idea the significance of them.  We just took some pictures because it looked important or something!?

I am so thankful for the Parish family, my persistent husband, and our Louisiana weekend.  

"You are not bad communicators.   You know what needs to be said.  You are just lacking the honesty and integrity to say it."  Eddie Parish   (OUCH.  THIS HIT HOME.)