As I mentioned earlier this week, I attended a women’s retreat at my church this weekend. It was a wonderful time of encouragement and refreshment.  The theme for the retreat was “Walking In The Light”.

Friday night we enjoyed dinner, laughter, a great speaker, and learning about the break out sessions that would be offered on Saturday.

Saturday, after a delicious and decadent breakfast of pastries and fruit, we dove head first into the break out sessions. With 12 great topics to choose from, it was hard to whittle my decision down to the three classes I had time to attend. In the end I chose: Journaling: Encounters with God, Praying for Your Children, and Boundaries. And I would still love to go back and take some of the other sessions.

The journaling session appealed strongly to my creative side. And since I already keep prayer and Bible study journals, I was interested in learning more about the journaling  process. The session did not disappoint. I received a lot of new ideas that have given me a fresh, new perspective on my journaling. We also decorated journals during the last half of the session. I’ve seen this done before but have never taken the time to do it. I don’t think I’ll ever use a plain journal again. This was too easy and so fun to do.

After that I headed over to the Praying for Your Children session. I have been praying scripture for my children for years now but we were given a lot of wonderful resources to encourage us and assist us as we continue on the lifelong journey of praying for our children. I appreciated learning from a mom who has moved on to the grandparenting season of life now. She’s taken on the new role of praying for her grandchildren as well as her children. At the end of the session we formed prayer circles based on the season we were in: Spring for those with infants & toddlers, Summer for those with elementary aged children, Fall for those with teenagers and young adults, and Winter for those with adult children and grandchildren. I was struck by the intensity of those praying in the Fall and Winter circles. It is a different time indeed.

My final session was Boundaries. Have you ever considered that some of the things you say yes to because you don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings or let them down might not be what God wants you to do? That was the idea behind this wonderfully informative session. Boundaries are given to us by God and they are helpful in living a Spirit-led life.

We finished Saturday with lunch and more time learning from the guest speaker.

I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I realized how much I needed that time of refreshment. I have been more focused  and more encouraged this week than I have been in awhile. I’m thankful for the time I was given to be at the retreat this weekend, for those who put in the time to make it happen and for God using it to refresh me and others who were there.

Have you taken some time to be encouraged and refreshed lately?

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