The Treat in ReTREAT

I spent this past weekend with approximately 35 women and 3 baby girls. Yes, I did say 35. After much urging from my husband and having a few people at the church ask me if I was going, I decided to go to the PVCC retreat. It started out with me in a bit of a frenzy. I had mismanaged my time on Friday and so for about an hour, I ran around like a headless chicken trying to make sure that I had everything that I needed. That time was spent, finishing packing, loading kids into cars, racing to Walmart, finding a sleeping bag and then rocketing over to pick up Connie. I managed to get to her place by around 6:40 ish which was good because we figured that the ideal check in time at the Circle Square Ranch would be around 7:30. I also had to stop to get something to eat, I wasn't kidding around when I said I mismanaged my time on Friday! Anyway, I did managed to get myself a little calmed down after we arrived and unloaded all our stuff from the car. I still can't get over how much stuff a baby needs for a weekend. Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that I took Grace with me. This was a source of much stress for me, not because she is a hard baby to take care of but because I was concerned that she was going to be too distracting for everyone there. As it turns out, there were plenty of ladies there, willing to lend a hand and she and the other two babies were well taken care of and well loved.
Anyway, about the retreat. There is a reason why the word retreat has the word TREAT in it. What an amazing weekend. Yes, it was difficult too, but full of blessing. Our speaker this weekend was Kathy Butryn, a wonderful woman of God, lifecoach, mentor, and mom. She taught us so much and really showed us how faithful she is when, on Sunday morning, she obeyed God and threw out her notes. We were so incredibly blessed by what happened on Sunday, I am sure that our church will never be the same. This weekend, especially Sunday, has bonded us in so many ways. There were many women who opened up and shared their hurts and fears and were embraced and prayed for by everyone there. I was so afraid of getting to the retreat and feeling like I was on the outside looking in on all the cliques but this was not the case. There was no cattiness, no gossip, no man-bashing (that I heard other than during the movie we watched which was purely in fun) and most of all, there was not one group of women that you could not approach for fear of being ignored or brushed off. For a long time, I've been searching for a church where we really felt like we belonged and was ready to throw in the towel, but this weekend showed me that Pleasant Valley is a church that we can call home.