I was so excited!

It was late October during my days as a youth pastor. All in one weekend, we had a Leadership Retreat, a Fund-Raiser Lunch and our annual Youth Harvest Party. Which also included a trip to the local Hay-Maze! These events were added to the regularly scheduled Worship Team practice, Sunday school lesson, Sunday morning worship and preaching team meeting.

Now, I understand that the immediate question would be, “Why would you try to do all this on the same weekend?” The short answer is that “I didn’t“. It wasn’t the original plan. These events were scheduled for different weekends, but a few different factors brought them all together.

So, I rolled with it.

I planned according to what I was given. And All was going well through Friday night (other than a few technical difficulties, but that didn’t feel abnormal). We started it off with a great review discussion (perhaps a debate) about last year’s retreat; specifically acknowledging goals and objectives that we had achieved and missed the mark on throughout this past year.

We followed this up with a showing of “To Save A Life“, to get the group primed for the following day’s discussions and objectives. Friday night ended with the guys and gals splitting into their appropriate dorms for some late-night discussion surrounding the movie. An excellent start to the weekend.

The next morning, I felt terrible!

Considering the late-night discussion and the early wake-up, I wasn’t really surprised at the cerebral fogging and abdomen shuffle that I had going on. So, with a little hydration and dry toast, I pushed through and the morning went fairly well.

However, my bodily maintenance mode all started to fail after the outdoor group initiatives with the student leaders. Spending an hour in the cold gave my body permission to start shutting down. By lunchtime, as the sushi/tempura spread was being served (which I normally would have devoured), I realized that my ship was sinking.

“I have to hold it together for five more hours! I’m leading this retreat. I’m the captain and I gotta keep this ship afloat!“

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly our fallen bodies can destroy all our best-laid plans. Adam and Eve really didn’t know how good they had it, did they? As soon as we believe we’re the ones in control of our daily lives, something takes place to remind us that we’re definitely not.

By 3:30 PM, I was a mess.

I ended up cancelling the last aspect of our retreat. Within half an hour, I had resolved to embrace the fetal position in the back corner of the conference room, while everyone else to packed things up. As I think back to it now, I’m so embarrassed.

By the time I made it home, I was wrecked. I popped a couple of cold and flu pills and hit the sack. Like many others before me, I tried my best to beat the illness. I consumed lots of fluids, a couple of bowls of hot soup and the FDA-allotted amount of cold and flu meds.

Nothing pulled me back to my feet.

As you may have already guessed, I did indeed miss Sunday and every activity and event that took place. By 4:00 PM, two hours before our annual Harvest Party was about to begin, I let go of the frustration, accepted defeat and made the call to our Youth Center Director. I was just too sick to lead the event.

By Monday morning the fever had broke.

I made a plan to be back to work by that afternoon. I checked Facebook to see that our Youth Center Director and our Youth Leadership Team pulled off all aspects of the eventful day without my supervision. I’m sure they would have appreciated my involvement, but they didn’t need me.

That weekend provided a few key lessons:

1. God is sovereign and in control. He knew what was going to happen as I planned every aspect, and as events compiled into each other.
2. Leaders are nothing without their teams. I can achieve nothing without my team. Nothing had to be cancelled because I had a faithful team to support the plans that were made.
3. Every day of health is a gift from God; a blessing that I should be acknowledged with thanksgiving. If we woke up today feeling well, we can’t take it for granted.

Join the Conversation; Share Your Thoughts

• Has illness ever ruined your best-laid plans?
• Have you ever scheduled events and activities that have all fallen apart?
• How did you react or do you react when plans don’t go your way?