This Year's Women's Retreat

First day of women's retreat was great. Speakers were good and the food was too. The scenery as always was beautiful. God is great. It's always good to get away into the mountains, even Jesus did that to reconnect with God. We should as well.

Our first speaker was Bev and she gave a great lesson in "What's in your purse?" More pictures and details to follow as its lights out soon at the lodge here and I'm worn out. Night everyone.

Here are the more pictures I promised you. It was a great women's retreat as the three speakers: Bev Campbell, Cathy Koch and Carol Sheldon talked about being well dressed spiritually as Christian Women as we walk out into the world and witness for Christ.

Bev had us look into our purses to see what we are carrying around in there. Is it full of things like thankfulness, praise, love, forgiveness, kindness, goodness, faith, trust, and all the other qualities of Christ. Or is your purse loaded down like a bag of heavy rocks with things like bitterness, unforgiveness, jealousy, greed, anger, uncontrolled tongue, resentment, and other things that weigh us down rather than lighten our load.

Carol and Cathy gave us a good demonstration about well-dressed feet and a custom creation. They talked about what different things such as flat shoes, pumps, work boots, infinity scarfs and other things can represent to us as we get properly dressed for God's kingdom.

Each year as we attend the retreat it is so wonderful getting in touch with our other sisters in Christ that we only get to see once a year. The fun we have playing games, making crafts together, singing, hiking to Frog Lake and fellowshipping is priceless. 

Speaking of "frog." I just learned something from my friend in Chicago who told me what her grandmother taught her. Frog stands for Fully Rely On God. F.R.O.G. That is what we need to strive to be as Christian women, women who are fully relying on God and that is what the goal of our annual Christian Women Fellowship of Central Oregon retreat is  all about becoming FROG Christians.

Rhonda, Nyla and Aubrey

Nyla and her service dog Grace

The lodge

Smile ladies :)

Brooke and Aubrey trying out the paddle boat

Bev looking into what's in our purses

 

Speaker Carol Sheldon demonstrating various shoes

Speaker Cathy Koch

Karen and her granddaughter's Brooke and Aubrey

View of Round Lake

View of the swing and picnic table area

A look down from the lodge balcony

Coordinator Joan Anderson. Rosie in the chair

Bonnie looking like she is getting all tangled up

 

Craft time of crocheting purses out of grocery bags. Another craft was scented bath crystals, foot massage powder and others. Also there was a table for those who wanted to try and make jewelry.

Thanks to our cook Kristie and her parents Dick and Claire we were well fed

 

Closer look at the homemade swing set with the basketball court in the background

Thank you Lord for Your presence with us at retreat. For the wonderful weather and the chance to fellowship with one another while we learned more of what we can do to enhance our walk with You.

In love W.I.T.H. Jesus,

Karen J. Gillett

Emotional Fitness ~~~~~~ Fighting Against Stress

  As one of the speakers at Women's Retreat this year Bev Campbell and I both spoke about emotional fitness. Bev talked about many things including the scripture that says that physical fitness may have a little benefit, emotional or spiritual fitness is what has lasting values for all eternity. In my talk with the lady I talked about stress and the tricks we can use to fight against it. I gave the ladies ways to stay focused when stress is in the midst that we may stay healthy emotionally.

 

Unable to finish covering my handouts with the ladies I will cover on this blog what I didn't get to finish at the retreat. At the retreat it may have been "TMI" too much information to absorb all at once but here we have as long as we want to finish what we started. Let the learning begin:

 

We will cover the list of "catchy sayings" that were handed out and how we can use them to help us in our fight against stress. After going thru that list we will cover the scriptures I used to fight my stress seizures that have lasting value for any fight we are in.

 

Last but not least we will cover the list of Stress Fighting tips that were given. To get a head start on those you can look at the first six listed on JenningsWire where I blogged about these already.

 

Catchy Saying #1   It's a fight worth fighting with a coach worth listening to

Any struggle we are in, any fight we are fighting is worth it when we have God as our coach. What a blessing it is to have on our side someone who really cares and is willing to be there through all our struggles. God is not there to prevent us from going through hard times but He is there to help walk us through these moments in our lives. Just like a football coach can’t play for the players, prevent them from being hurt when tackled, or fight their battles for them when tempers fly on the field God is the same way. He is there to give us the advice needed to win, cheer us on, encourage us when we need it the most, and strengthen us both emotionally and spiritually as we do our part. We are the ones who have to be willing to fight the fight with the right attitude. The attitude to not merely survive life but to win in a manner that would make our coach, our Lord God himself proud He has us on His team.

 No fight, struggle, or hard time is pleasant at the moment but with God as our coach He makes it worth fighting to stay upright in our Christian walk one success at a time.