by Abigail Whitehouse

It’s beautiful how God works. This past fall, I approached one of our lay leaders, Mary Springmann, about chairing a committee to plan Truro’s first women’s ministry retreat in fifteen years. It was a bit of a daunting task, but she was up to the challenge! A few weeks later, Mary approached me with the vision God had given her for the retreat. It was of a group of women gathered around a well like the Samaritan woman in John 4, drinking deeply of Christ’s living water. She told me the weekend would be better than all we could ask for or imagine.

It was. On the first Friday in March, ninety women from Truro Church (Fairfax, VA) drove the winding road from Fairfax to Cacapon Resort State Park. In God’s grace and kindness to us, Catherine Warner agreed to be our retreat speaker, and from the moment she opened her mouth, I knew our women wouldn’t leave unchanged. In a beautifully authentic and winsome way, Catherine invited us into a rich theology of rest. She reminded us of what we are made for – a life animated by God’s presence and delight – and that, just as “evening passed” and then “morning came” in the story of creation, so our work ought to always follow, and flow from, our rest. She challenged us to notice and name the things that rob us of rest and to do the hard and beautiful work of repentance. Above all, she modeled courage and vulnerability, and I saw that same courage and vulnerability ripple through the room as women risked opening-up about the difficult places in their lives in small groups and on walks, over dinner and in prayer.

That weekend I saw the best of women’s ministry on display, and as I stood at the communion table that Sunday morning, I was overwhelmed by the goodness of God. Only God could have put the pieces together in such a kind, creative and transformative way. As our Rector, Jamie Brown, quipped this past Sunday: it makes me want to say “Alleluia” in Lent!

Abigail Whitehouse is the Associate Rector of Truro Anglican Church in Fairfax, VA.