President’s Message
Hola and welcome Ladies of the Louisiana Conference United Women in Faith,
It is indeed an honor for me to serve as your new 2024 conference president. I am deeply humbled and filled with gratitude. I will do my best to serve you with integrity.
I am ready to get to work! Please let me know if you have newsletters, photos, etc. that can be placed on our new website. I would love it if you had new ideas that you would like to share with me. Your contributions can make our website even better. Feel free to contact me via our conference email – [email protected].
I appreciate all that you do for United Women in Faith. Without you, we could not accomplish the amazing things that we do and continue to put faith, hope and love in action.
God bless you,
Brenda
MY THOUGHTS:
After celebrating Jesus’ birth, we are graced with the opportunities of 2024: opportunities pertaining to family situations, church situations, world situations, and personal situations. If you are reading this, it is safe to say that we share these opportunities. The opportunities before us in 2024 include abundant life, balance, connection and community.
Abundant Life. We can easily become so concerned about the day-to-day expenses, the work that must get done, the problems at our work or at church that sometimes we don’t see the opportunities that we are blessed with. Do we see the opportunities of giving our time, talent, and money? I grew up in family and a church that taught me so much about mission. I learned as child how important it was to try to help others and to give freely. I carried this over into my adult life and I instilled this quality in my children. I live humbly, but I feel that because of my living a life of service, I am an example of what it is like to life an abundant life.
Balance. Balance in our lives is often hard to maintain. If we find ourselves on the computer or cell phone for too many hours in a day and neglect our family, our friends, or our colleagues, then we need to take a good look at how our time is spent. That is what Soul Care retreats are all about. It is important to take time to reconnect with our Creator and creation. Taking long walks or sitting with a friend or neighbor that we haven’t had the time to visit in a while would be a good start. We can even have a Soul Care retreat in our own home! Could we actually stay away from our phone, computer, or TV for one day a week, one day a month? Let’s be honest, many of us would have a great deal of trouble doing that for even one day a year! Last week, AT& T had problems with our phones, how many of us could barely function? No Wi-Fi – not being able to check our email, be on Facebook, TikTok or Instagram! That day was unbelievable! Some people could barely function without social media. Do we ever see opportunities to bring balance to our lives?
Connection and Community. Connection and community are what the United Methodist Church and United Women in Faith are all about. Ask yourselves: “How many of my closest friends would I not have met if I had not been a member of a United Methodist Church or United Women in Faith?” We are blessed to know each other, to pray for and with each other. In spite of the many problems in our world, we still have each other and most of all we have the love, mercy, and forgiveness of our Lord.
As the opportunities of 2024 are upon us, I am reminded of a scripture that a close friend of mine who is a member of United Women in Faith blessed me with: “Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord and not for your masters, since you know that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you serve the Lord Christ,” Colossians 3: 23 and 24. We serve the Lord Christ! Make the most of the opportunities you are given; God is with us and He promised never to leave us. Let us go forward boldly as United Women in Faith and transform the world.