As you begin your retreat, pause for a few moments and allow yourself to grow still. Take several slow, deep breaths. Feel God's loving gaze upon you.

1 Timothy 4:4

For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected when received with thanksgiving.

God is love. It is impossible for God, whose essence is love, to create anything that is not good. Sometimes, our own labels of "good" and "bad" get in the way of our ability to see the goodness of God in its fullness. Paul challenges Timothy, and us, to renegotiate our categories and to simply receive all that God creates with thanksgiving. We believe that God created us and loved us into being. God continues to provide for all our needs, in sometimes surprising ways.

For what can I give thanks today?

Is there some aspect of creation that I'm being challenged to look at more closely today?

(Speak to God using this prayer or one of your own.)

Creating God, I give you thanks for the variety of your creation. Open my eyes to see that all you create is good.