Could it be two weeks already since our women’s retreat. I look at my planner and it most surely is. Last year our retreat was cancelled when the church camp was closed for the winter and until May. Our retreat, originally Mount Zion Lutheran Women’s retreat, is always held in late April and has been held at Camp Edgewood at Eden Mills, ON, for many years. This year we were in for a treat because we were at Stone House at Hidden Acres near Shakespeare, Ontario.

We ate, gathered and learned in this building, and the accommodations were good too. We had time to explore the camp in free time as well, so we weren’t indoors all the time.
Our theme for the weekend was “Seeing God in Surprising Places.” We arrived early evening on the Friday, unpacked our gear and food contributions, dug out our Bibles for worship and greeted each other. It had been two years since our last gathering so it was good to see each and catch up on what’s happened in others’ lives. Among them were two newcomers to the group, and they came with musical instruments.
Friday evening’s questions for pondering included these questions:
What’s the dream/project or vision you feel called to in this time of  your life?
What is one tangible part where you can start where you are?
In small groups we talked about seeing God not only in church, but also in the community and where we’re asked to serve.
A really interesting question that we carried with us in our conversations for the weekend:
Where do you see assigned seating?
In the world there is assigned seating, but in the kingdom of God, there is not.

 
Saturday morning, we gathered again for discussion and worship. And we changed our seating arrangement often that weekend.
 
As women, we  are called upon for many roles. We’re often wives, mothers, sisters, care givers. Add in work commitments and we may be business owners, employees, and in my case, a writer too. We often have many identities. We talked about identities that we carry around.
Some of the questions we were asked included: Which ones need to shrink? And which ones need to grow?
Pastor Anne kept adding on layers of questions for us to discuss in our small groups: When does one identity fight for prominence (my own words) over another?

Pastor Anne Anderson, our spiritual director for the weekend, handed out nesting Russian dolls for us to open  until we reached the smallest one. The last one was indeed very tiny.

Most dolls of this sort that I’ve seen before were similar to this one, where all the dolls are modelled after women and they get tinier and tinier as we open up one layer after another. I had never seen the kind that housed different characters within.
One question on Saturday morning for us to ponder on our own:
If Jesus could talk with you personally today, what is the message he would give you?
Consider that question any time and come up with your own answer.

We followed the discussion about identities with an activity.

some of our results

 
After lunch we did a craft directed by Helen Weber. Here’s one example of our journal and jar with journal topics.

 

 
We ate, we laughed, sometimes cried as we shared things in our lives, knowing that what we said in confidence in the group stayed there. We enjoyed each other’s company. During spare time, we went outdoors for a walk and enjoyed nature.
 

 

 

One of the other buildings at camp
 

A new person to the group. We sat on the swings and chatted. We both love to take photographs.
 

And some of the time we just sat and visited.

 
Here are a few questions that we contemplated that you can too:
Where do you encounter God?
How do we celebrate who we are? And how do we live that out in a diverse society?