Although this year may not have been back to normal, (whatever normal is) we are so proud of all we accomplished. Holly and I want to invite you on a journey to see all we put our hearts and hands to this year! The newsletter will give you a glimpse of how the year began with continuing to beautify the property and then getting to see some amazing groups enjoying the space we created.
With 2020 halting all our well laid plans, my husband and I decided to use that time to focus on creating beautiful, peaceful spaces on the property for people to enjoy. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to the humble conclusion that it isn’t about what I can do, but it is all about creating space for what only God can do in the lives of others. At Shine Healing Ministries we believe that nature and undistracted time away to hear God’s whisper is healing. And we have made it our mission to create a space where people can encounter God’s heart and love.
This last year I was continually drawn to the phrase “soul rest” and as I asked the Lord what does this really mean? He whispered, “It is the place of encounter heart to heart.” The place where your heart connects with God’s. Personal encounters with God’s heart are becoming rarer as our culture is growing more distracted with each passing day. Selah Ranch is designed to be a space for the heart, where you can slow down and be reminded of what is truest about you. It is a place where you can disconnect from the distraction of the world and feel embraced by God’s love. The truest thing about you is that you are LOVED. And at Shine we believe the only way we truly learn how to love like Jesus, is to accept that he is wildly crazy about us first.
So, Holly and I set out to create experiences where women could feel just that – God’s extravagant and wild love for them! We wanted women to have a space to slow down, catch their breath, find healing, and be encouraged to not hold back but fully shine their unique light in the world. We began our retreat season with a Restorative Rhythms Retreat and then an Undone by Love experience. We also enjoyed planning a few surprises for those who came for their own self-guided retreats and ended the season with some wonderful fall nights around the fire being reminded of creative ways to connect with God’s heart and find the courage to give his love away to others.
Holly and I discovered that one of our favorite parts about the retreats was creating the participant boxes. One of the values we hold at Shine Healing Ministries is radical hospitality and the boxes became a way for us to express this to the women who came to Selah Ranch. We believe that hospitality is healing. Everyone longs for a space where they belong, can be seen fully and accepted completely. Our hope with creating the retreat boxes was that each woman would feel extravagantly loved, welcomed, and special when their eyes soaked in the contents inside. I believe we accomplished that goal and it has led to an idea we want to cultivate in the coming years!
Our dream is to create a retreat experience in a box. A buy one, give one opportunity! Where women who purchase a box will then allow us to gift a box to a woman who may have forgotten or has never realized how dearly loved she is! We want all women to experience God’s love and to expand our reach beyond those who can come in person to our retreats. We hope to partner with small business that are doing great things as well as other organizations that are loving women well. We want to make women feel even more loved by sending them “A Rooted Place” box. The name is based on Ephesians 3:17 and our prayer for every woman who experiences our ministry in one way or another is that they will find a secure & rooted place in God’s love: “Then, by constantly using your faith, the life of Christ will be released deep inside you, and the resting place of his love will become the very source and root of your life” (TPT).
The truth is the world and the church we’ve known are changing. People are leaving the church in droves or worse yet, some never felt welcomed in the first place. We must find unique ways to reach those with the Good News. Because ultimately it is the best new anyone could ever receive! And we believe our boxes can be an avenue to God’s heart for so many. We hope that you will choose to partner with us on this journey to continue to shape, develop and grow our property as well as send these boxes full of expressions of God’s goodness to every woman who needs to be reminded of how very loved she is!
We need monthly donors, volunteers, people with business who may want to contribute products for our boxes, and women-serving, organization that would like to network with us so that we can gift “Rooted Place” boxes to other beautiful causes. As a side note, we could also use your prayers as we have run into a few snags with building and developing indoor spaces on the property as some laws have become even more strict. However, we are believing that these obstacles will be overcome, and we will have an indoor space soon so that we are no longer dependent on good weather in order to hold our events.
Please reach out to me, josie@shinehealing.org, with any questions, desires to partner with us, or suggestions on ministries we can partner with to spread more of God’s love to the hearts of women.
Many Blessings,
Josie Muterspaw, Founder
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