A Women's Retreat: The Seasons of Our Lives

On Saturday, May 22, the Women's Fellowship at church held another wonderful Women's Retreat. It was held at Lakeside Haven B&B in Glover, on Shadow Lake. This is the third retreat I have attended and now that I'm back in Vermont I look forward to attending more. The retreats give you a day of tranquility, worship, study and discussion.

The theme for this retreat was "The Seasons of Our Lives," based on the book The Circle Of Life: The Heart's Journey Through The Seasons. I haven’t read it yet, but our pastor recommends it, and her recommendations are excellent. We have four seasons in our lives just as Nature has four seasons in hers. We discussed the significance and meaning of each season for each of us individually. Our pastor provided music for meditation and beautiful journals for journaling and we shared poetry and readings from the book all through the day.

We each contributed something we cooked for lunch. After lunch, we crafted the seasons of our hearts. I choose summer. The retreat was exactly one week before my wedding and the calm and contentment I felt was something that I wanted to convey in my craft. I wanted the warmth of the summer, the symbolic power of a circle and the connection to sunflowers in my creation. My last craft for another retreat featured triangles which, the pastor said, illustrated my connection to the Trinity. During the crafting session, I walked outside to gather my thoughts and photographed the grape hyacinth and the dying tulip that I have published here. I may not be too talented with art, but I was pleased with what I created (below), even though I used way too much glue. The other women created beautiful, strong expressions of the other seasons. I wish I could share them with you here.

We ended the day as we began it: with worship but now followed by a long goodbye session. It was a wonderful, spiritual day. Our pastor is planning many more and I am looking forward to them. I urge you to attend the retreats offered at your church. If there aren’t any, suggest them to your Women’s Fellowship group.

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