Jeannie McGinnis is the St Hild Communications and Marketing Officer
There is an image that has stayed with me for almost thirty years: a rock dropping into a still pond.
As it falls, it disturbs everything — stirring the mud, sending ripples across the surface. For a moment, nothing is clear. But the rock doesn’t fight the water to find peace. It simply stops resisting and lets gravity carry it down. Only when it rests on the bottom does the sediment settle and the surface become calm enough to reflect the sky.
I first encountered this picture of the rock and the pond on a silent retreat in my mid-twenties, at a convent called Villa de Matel, which offered overnight accommodations for individuals seeking quiet. I didn’t know it then, but that image would become a kind of map I’d return to for the rest of my life — a way of understanding what actually happens, inside us, when we finally stop and go still before God.
Why Stillness Is So Hard to Reach
When something difficult lands in our lives — a hard conversation, a loss, an overwhelming season of ministry — it hits like that rock hitting the water. It stirs up anxiety, frustration, grief, fear. And just like the pond, our minds can’t see clearly in that moment. We’re too busy churning to process what just happened.
What I’ve learned, slowly and imperfectly, is that clarity doesn’t come from escaping the pond. It comes from letting myself sink. From accepting what I feel instead of fighting it. From staying in the water long enough for the mud to settle on its own.
That settling takes time. It is not instant, and it is rarely comfortable at first, which is exactly why retreat — real, set-apart, unhurried time away — has become so essential to how I sustain my soul.
The Pattern Jesus Modelled
I take real comfort in the fact that Jesus did this too. Despite carrying a weight of ministry far beyond anything I will ever carry, He repeatedly withdrew — from the crowds and even from His own disciples — to find quiet places to pray. This wasn’t incidental to His ministry. It was the thing that sustained it.
Luke tells us that Jesus often withdrew to lonely places to pray. Mark describes Him rising before dawn to find a solitary spot. Before some of His most significant decisions, He spent a full night praying alone on a mountainside. Even in the middle of active ministry, He made space to pray in private.
If Jesus needed to withdraw regularly, we don’t have to feel guilty about needing the same thing. Retreat isn’t a luxury or an indulgence — it is a pattern worth following.
If Jesus needed to regularly withdraw, we don’t have to feel guilty about needing the same thing. Retreat isn’t a luxury or an indulgence — it’s a pattern worth following. It’s not a reward we earn once the ministry work is finished. It’s part of what makes that work sustainable in the first place.”
What This Has Looked Like for Us
My husband Daniel and I have made retreat a priority since we were engaged, twenty-eight years ago. For years, while we served in full-time ministry, we each tried to get away — a day at minimum, two or three days when we could manage it. When our kids were young or tied to school schedules, it took more creativity to make it work, but we kept finding a way because we both saw what this time did for every other part of our lives.
Even in the busiest seasons of young motherhood, I tried to claim at least a day alone, a few times a year. It always felt like a sacrifice in the moment. It was always worth it.
Retreat hasn’t had to mean something elaborate. It has looked like a quiet room at a friend’s house, a Christian retreat centre, or a simple Airbnb in a remote place. When our kids were home, and our budget was tight, staying local sometimes meant staying in our own house and simply protecting the time. The setting mattered far less than the commitment to actually make the time happen (though being at home meant I could hear the laundry calling my name more easily).
Holding Structure Loosely
One thing I’ve had to learn, often the hard way, is not to over-plan a retreat. I used to arrive with a whole book to read, a passage to study in depth, or pages of strategy to work through — and I’d leave having missed the point entirely. At the same time, showing up with absolutely no structure at all isn’t the answer either; that can just become its own kind of avoidance.
What I’ve found instead is a middle place: going in with enough openness to actually reach what is happening in the depths of my soul and then pouring that out honestly — sometimes through tears — to the One who hears. To some retreats, I bring art supplies. Some I write. Many times, I simply sit and wait for that still, small Voice.
No two retreats have looked the same because I never arrive in the same place. Sometimes I come in empty and depleted, or hurting and worn down. Other times, I arrive full of excitement and vision. The posture that matters isn’t the content of the retreat — it’s the willingness to make the time at all.
The First Day Is Still Hard
Even after decades of this practice, and even as an introvert who genuinely values silence, I still find the first day of a retreat lonely. There is something strange about actually stopping. The pace of life doesn’t want to let go that easily, and once it does, the emotions I’ve been outrunning often catch up with me first.
What I’ve come to expect — and what I’d encourage anyone in ministry to expect — is that two to three nights away tend to be the rhythm I need. The first day is for adjusting, for letting the rock fall and the water churn. It usually takes a little while after that before I find my footing, my safe place, the place where I’m sinking down to meet with God rather than just sitting in a quiet room.
To Those Serving in Ministry
If you keep showing up for everyone else, over and over, I want to say plainly: retreat is not a reward you earn after the ministry is finished. It is part of what makes the ministry sustainable in the first place.
My husband still goes on retreat several times a year, and he always comes back refreshed, renewed, and re-envisioned. And though I’m no longer in vocational ministry, this value and practise is still deeply ingrained in me. I know it’s always worth the money, the time, and whatever else it costs to make the space for it.
Jesus, busier with ministry than any of us would ever be, still made the effort to get away to lonely places. That should give every one of us permission to do the same — not as an escape from our calling, but as the very thing that keeps us able to carry it.
Wherever you are starting from — depleted, hurting, hopeful, or simply tired — there is value in letting yourself sink. The ripples do settle. The water does clear. And in that stillness, Someone is waiting to meet you.