On Friday September 7th, the women of Holiness Tabernacle traveled to the Williamsburg Christian Retreat Center in Williamsburg, VA for a weekend away, to recharge their spiritual batteries and fellowship with one another.
Seminars tailored to uplift and maximize participants’ potential were given by various speakers. On Friday, the ladies were blessed with a discussion entitled, “Maximize Your Assets”. Sis Yolinda McCown encouraged the ladies to spend time with God, learning about what the gifts and talents are that He has placed in their lives. She went onto explain the law of use and disuse. “The more you use your gift, the better you are at it,” she stated.
Saturday morning came with the ladies greeting the Lord in prayer followed by a workout session led by Mother Brown. After breakfast, Mother Freda Benjamin came before the group with an engaging topic entitled, “Women Walking Worthy.” Her text came from Colossians 1:9-10, “For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;”
According to Mother Benjamin, before God can pour into us all that he desires for us, we must first empty out what’s already within, like bitterness, hatred, resentment, disobedience and anger just to name a few. “We need to come to God completely empty of ourselves”, she said. Mother Benjamin concluded her presentation by stating that we – HTC women – should be growing in our prayer lives, as well as studying His word. “As HTC women we can, and will, walk in a worthy way.”
Following Mother Benjamin’s session, Mother Pruitte spoke to the ladies on living our life by design and not by default. She encouraged the woman to not just exist, but to live with purpose and on purpose. Mother Pruitte explained that many women live in a cycle of misery because of something someone said or did to them. “But you can come out of this state of misery by storing up praise, prayer and God’s word during time of plenty so that when the lean time comes you’re able to pull up a scripture,” she said. “When you get to heaven, God is not going to ask ‘What did someone do to you?’, but rather ‘What did you do?’”
The final session of the retreat was given by Aspiring Missionary Danielle Benjamin who reinforced that as women of God, we are valued and victorious. Between sessions the ladies gathered both on the retreat site and offsite, venturing out in the historic city of Yorktown. The retreat came to a close Sunday morning with the ladies surrounding Mother Pruitte and praying for her as she continues to be a beacon and wonderful support to the women of HTC.
The annual weekend once again proved to be an enlightening and fun-filled retreat, giving the ladies something to look forward to next year. I plan on being there. Won’t you?