A kingdom far, far away...okay, not far enough.

Once upon a time, a lovely maid and her fellow maidens decided to attend a retreat. It was a glorious idea, as previous retreats had been quite the blessing with time away from family and commitments. In the time away the maid often enjoyed cooler weather, being waited on by resort staff when there was a fresh towel needed or some icy good Diet Coke, and spiritual refreshment that can only be experienced in such a setting.


As the date drew near for the retreat of the year two thousand and eight, the maid pondered attending as it would be not in the cooler climate as in times past, but rather right here in the desert with the scorpions, snakes, spiders and other pests. But alas, a decree came from the house of the maid, which insisted that she attend. The royal butler had made every arrangement to care for the maids dwelling place and any remaining peasants, and thus, the maid and her maiden friend embarked on their spiritual journey.



It was a lovely drive to the resort and the clouds in the sky promised to make it not such a dry heat afterall. In fact, over the weekend, the maid would discover the beauty of said dry heat as she and her subjects were exposed to much humidity, and even with room temperature lowered to 60 degrees the dewey maidens could not sleep a wink in their semi-private chambers the first night of their journey.



The next morning the maid emerged from her resting place drenched in sweat and hurriedly prepared to meet the other maidens for the 7:30 breakfast. Twas no time for relaxing bathing or showering, so the maid participated in what is commonly known as a bird bath* and threw on her clean garments.


Being that the maid is accustomed to the night shift, she doesn't often awake singing praises. In fact, it is often best in her maid's kingdom that the peasants refrain from speaking to her before noon. Needless to say many maidens of the morning variety were happily eating their breakfasts while the birds chirped, and they all appeared to have actually slept quite well. The maid did not fit in, but quietly ate her swine, fruit and leavened bread. She was, after all, grateful that she did not have to prepare it nor do a single dish. Ahhh, the beauty of retreat.



Even in her quietness that morning, the great King who appointed the maid to her position alongside the butler, and who ordains and directs every step of her life allowed her to see the blessing He had for her that very morning. Maidens from the land of the dry heat were appointed by the King to come and speak with and fervently pray with the maid. There were tears of joy and appreciation and the maid felt the presence of the King, and healing in many of her relationships.



As the morning went on, those who were to deliver the King's messages did a lovely job and further blessed the maid. There was laughter and encouragement and even vindication in their words. The maid was reminded that although she stumbles, the King will not allow her to fall. That her life is exactly what and where her King wants her to be. She is not under the law, but under grace. And those who point out the sin in her life are failing to remove the log from their own eyes. Wow. What a great King. Our lives of worship for our king, no matter what land we come from, are to be identified by how we love one another, and how we love God.



Oh there was much more, but the maid and her maidens were embarking on their journey to lunch. On the way out, even money was lavished on the maid by a sweet sister maid. Again there were tears of joy and gratitude. And the maidens departed to a far off place to dine on pheasant...I mean chicken and rice...or to Eat Fresh.



What a great time the retreat from retreat turned out to be for all of the maidens. We enjoyed our meals, laughed, and talked and soon ventured out to the carriage to head back to the enchanted land of the scorpions.



Oh, but what did appear on the windshield of the maid's horse and buggy? A note. T'was penned on the back of a library receipt of a do-gooder of the land. It did say the following: "Yer tire is flat."



Ah, but the wisdom was already upon us as we saw the carriage was leaning and the buggy would not make the journey without summoning the Knights of the roadside assistance.



The maid would soon discover what ambitious maidens she dined with that day, as within moments they were assisting, neh, taking over changing the very tire themselves. As one of the maidens proclaimed, "Where, ye, are all the peasant men of the land to assist us with our buggy?" In just moments, one came riding up on his white horse, (i.e. - compact car) and offered his assistance.


He was an older subject with bald head and many years of wisdom. He swiftly parked his carriage and attended to us in our distress.



Moments later, a young lad and his maiden stopped to assist with the buggy as well. Apparently it is a custom where this young man hails from to remove your clothing and expose ye old undergarments and tatoos while in the company of many maidens. Gratitude welled up in all of our hearts and a couple of the maidens lovingly gave a sack of coins (Subway gift card) to the young do-gooders. We were saddened as we left that we couldn't have done more for the peasants: some incense, feed for their horses, or maybe new undergarments which weren't from the kingdom of old.


(I think I now know why our mothers do teach us to wear clean (aka: new) underwear when we venture from home.)



It would soon be that the maidens were back at the retreat in the desert, preparing for their twilight meal. Many had come from far away lands to serve the ladies, I venture to say, even from another country where the language of the maidens is not spoken. It was yet again another fine experience where our food was presented to us all and we neither had to kill it, cook it, or clean it. Yes, t'was a beautiful thing.



But the maid encountered something rather disturbing at the table, as just into the salad course, a fellow table mate commented about the computers (aka: cucumbers) on her salad. We laughed as only mom-maidens can laugh...for we knew the state of sleeplessness that causes such a fumble. The disturbing part is, although this maiden is an aquaintance of your blogging maid, she apparently is a blog reader. Immediately after commenting about her "computers" on her salad, she eyed the maid in all seriousness and said, "Oh, no, you are not going to blog about this are you?"



There I sat, at dinner, in a land far from my cottage and was exposed. It seems that there were several at the maid's table that evening who knew intimately her thoughts. It appears that they, too, knew of the blogging tales of the maid.



Of course that was just one of the many, as another maiden commented when the maid emerged from the little maidens room, "I'm surprised to see YOU using a PUBLIC restroom." There are maidens from lands far and near watching me. They are reading me. They KNOW me. I quickly flashed ye olde hand sanitizer at them, and hurried back to my bed chamber.

The maid was tired that evening from all of the scurrying and scampering about that only happens when the giddy maidens escape from their cottages where they must tend to the wash, the ironing, the chicken plucking, and keeping their peasant children happy. It was a beautiful kind of exhaustion. It was sleep deprivation mixed with gratitude and blessing.

Looking back, even with the bugs, the early mornings, the lack of sleep, the humidity, the flat tire, the sheer fatigue that came with this retreat, I truly considered it all joy. Our King can truly bring beauty from ashes.

And I suppose that knowing that, I can live happily ever after.

The End

*Disclaimer: Not much mention of the two unknown roomies that shared the room with the maid and her maiden friend...we just want to apologize right now for using your shower gel. The day that we were all packing up to leave, we realized that we had been using your goods over the weekend...we laughed in embarrassment when we figured that out. And a note to you and your lovely daughter: next time you room with two people you don't know, they probably wouldn't mistake your stuff for the hotel's stuff if you didn't leave EVERYTHING laying out EVERYWHERE!

Oh, and for those of you wondering just what exactly is a bird bath, well, as a dear friend once told me...that is where you only have time with wet washcloth to wash up as far as possible, down as far as possible, and then you wash "possible." After all, isn't that what they did in ye olde peasant days? :)