This picture pretty much sums up the state of affairs at our house this week:

Sadly, this was not staged!

On the bright side, we had a great weekend with our church women’s retreat to the beautiful Carlisle Inn in the great metropolis of Sugarcreek, Ohio. The weather was warmer, the sun was shining, and the dairy farm across the street provided a great country smell to greet us when we walked outside. :) It really was a lovely, relaxing weekend. I would live at Carlisle Inn if I could!

We mixed things up this year – instead of having a speaker, we broke everyone into 7 small discussion groups and worked through some guided studies of the Psalms together. It’s amazing how anytime you do something out of the ordinary, it makes people uncomfortable! Even though it was different, I hope that everyone enjoyed it as much as I did. It is a precious thing to look across a room full of women, Bibles open before them, discussing the meaning of Scripture and the greatness of God in their lives. I pray that His name was lifted up and that our time together was a pleasing aroma before Him.

Our theme was “Journeys of Grace” and we spent our time studying the psalms. One of the reasons we were very drawn to the idea of focusing on the Psalms was the opportunity it provided to discuss God’s faithfulness through all aspects of our journeys. Throughout the Psalms, David and the other psalmists share their innermost thoughts and struggles – and then always come back to the fact that no matter what pain, affliction, suffering, etc they experience, they know without a doubt that God is faithful, God is good, God is trustworthy.

This theme also lent itself well to hearing testimonies from other women, and we were blessed by hearing some incredible testimonies of God’s grace. After hearing a testimony, we spent the session times studying the Psalms together.

If you are interested in working through our study materials on your own or sharing them with other women, please do! Session one is a study of Psalm 23, focusing on the fact that the Lord is our Great Shepherd, and we can trust Him through pain and loss. Session two is a study of Psalm 73; it looks at God as our refuge, and at how we can trust him through times of anger and hurt. Session three is a study of Psalms 25-27. These Psalms together show how God can be our confidence, and how much our perspective is changed when our greatest desire is truly to know God above all else. All three of these files are available for download here.

May God bless you as you continue on your own “journey of Grace.” Praise the Lord that we’re not on this journey alone!