One year ago, fifty-two women ( some of you!) joined us on November 5th 2016, for the Heart Working Women’s premier conference at White Sulphur Springs in Manns Choice, PA. We have been blessed by you, and especially encouraged as we’ve been able to stay in touch. 🙂 I’m grateful for your continuing friendship and connection, and also looking forward to many more interactions, whether it be online or in person, as we grow along side one another.
The following is an excerpt from the newspaper article, written by Julie
Leppert for the Bedford Gazette, which announced our initial conference.
Heart Working Women of Western Pennsylvania is hosting its premier conference Saturday, Nov. 5, 2016 at the historic White Sulfur Springs, Manns Choice, Pa.
The conference, an outreach branch of Heart Working Women, will launch as a decade-long vision of Bedford County resident Joy Thacker. Joy says Heart Working Women is designed to equip and connect women throughout the region offering them creative tools to engage in life-giving relationships.
Joy, a pastor’s wife of 20 some years and a nationally certified counselor and relational therapist, says her inspiration for connecting women has been born and nurtured through her life experiences, the most significant one having been her own mother.
“I didn’t realize how much significance that held for me until I realized not every mom was nurturing like mine . . .” Joy said recently as she recalled her mother’s kind, loving nature mixed with a positive outlook toward life.
As the concept and vision for Heart Working Women has taken root and been clarified, Joy anticipates the arrival of a dear friend from Ohio whom she mentored there. “This woman and my friendship with her signifies for me the work of Heart Working Women. I have been able to connect in significant ways with women, but then the connections are disrupted with a move to a different location. The context of Heart Working Women provides the flow for those connections to continue. It carves out a space for continuity and encouragement in relationships, not only for me, but for many women in our busy culture when it can be difficult to maintain heartfelt, life-giving connection with themselves, with their families and communities, and with God.”
The premier event for Heart Working Women scheduled this fall (2016) invites women to a life-giving day of connections and will feature inspiration for transforming negative self-talk to life-giving self-talk in a community of safety.
Since the conference, and over this past year, we had a retreat (which was
smaller and more intimate) also at White Sulphur Springs Conference
Center.
In celebration of our one year, you can use the code OneYear for a 75%
discount on the purchase of the live video recording of our spring 2017
retreat here! ($5 until end of November, regularly $20)
We also had a few informal retreat gatherings in a lovely hideaway nestled in
the neighboring county where my family and I now live. This year has been an
amazing journey. Along the way we’ve embraced a few more women in our
think tank and continue to seek God’s direction as we wait on Him.
The direction of Heart Working Women has become clear as the following definition of a heart working woman indicates.
The heart working woman = one who is growing
emotionally & spiritually healthy
Breaking that down:
One who is willing to let go of destructive mindsets and emotions
One who is willing to make room for healthier mindsets and emotions
One who becomes increasingly aware that God is for her and not against her
One whose works are motivated primarily by love, not duty
One who gains an awareness of her double-mindedness, and seeks to become integrated
One who’s willing to position herself to receive God’s wisdom
One who welcomes the flow of God’s Spirit to circulate new life in the core of her being over and again
One who increasingly finds and responds to the Holy Spirit’s guidance in her ordinary everyday life
One who intentionally faces her difficulties knowing God will make her more like Him as a result
One who invests herself in a safe relationship with another woman, or a small group of women, for the purpose of building emotional & spiritual health
One who ultimately is a safe person, and with whom others can build meaningful safe community
A heart working woman is not:
One who is looking to carry out her own agenda
One who is hiding from herself, others, or God
One who is satisfied to be only where life is familiar and predictable
One who is clinging onto unhealthy mindsets and emotions once she becomes aware of them
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