by Linda Cutshall,
Director of Congregational Care

Women from all ages and stages of life gathered for all or part of our Women’s Retreat at Camp Berachah April 23 – 25. Berachah means “Valley of Blessing” and indeed His blessings were tangible. Our theme revolved around “Our Stories” the interweaving of our stories of origin with the redemptive stories and themes in scripture. Who we are ultimately gets absorbed in Whose we are. As the Heidelberg confessions says, “I belong to God, in life and death.”

Most of us know that feeling of being alone, isolated. It’s not the same as choosing to be alone once in a while, or being independent at times. It’s the feeling that no one is near, that no one remembers, that “no one cares for my soul” (Psalm 142:4), that there is no one to live for. Cindy Palmer openly talked about these lonely places where a person’s harsh words or treatment of you has the dominate word. She helped us name theses lies and begin to bring them to Jesus… to invite His love to embrace us into a new identity. “I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you.” *John 14:18

Marisa Gronholz invited us to look at the idols in our lives, to recognize that our story is defined by what we pay attention to. Marisa loves words, and the way she unpacked them helped us get a grasp on the importance of confessing our idolatry. “Attention” means “to serve”.

Just like the Israelites we’re prone to build idols for ourselves, to serve these because we’re fearful of placing our trust in God, even though He’s proven over and over again that He is faithful. We need to remember who we are and who God is. ”We are his people the sheep of His pasture” (Psalm 100)

Being sheep, followers of Jesus, certainly isn’t popular in an idol-driven culture. This is one of the reasons why it’s so important for us to keep telling each other stories of who He is and what He has done.