A Rachel's Vineyard weekend is a chance to get away from all the daily pressures of work and family and focus on this painful time in your life through a supportive and non-judgmental process. The time away provides an opportunity to deeply enter the grieving process and identify all the ways your abortion may have effected you.
Rachel's Vineyard has a number of powerful exercises which allow the soul to speak its grief and sorrow. The exercises help to connect participants to their inner voice, to each other, and to the love and compassion of God. The retreat exercises help participants to accept forgiveness for themselves and others. There is also an opportunity to re-connect with the children that have been aborted on a spiritual level, to give them honor and dignity through many special and creative spiritual exercises as well as in a memorial service.
The weekend is a lot of work, but those who are willing to journey through their grief will experience the power of resurrection in their own lives. They will find meaning in what has happened and allow God to transform the experience into something that gives hope, liberation and peace.
Rachel's Vineyard belongs to those who intuitively sense that life is a precious seed which has been given to us for cultivation. We acknowledge the loss of that irreplaceable life and the grief that comes from relinquishing one so intimately connected to us.
Rachel's Vineyard is meant to help those who are trying to fit the very normal epiphany of grief into a world that would rather have them feel numb and blind, so as to maintain a safe distance from the truth.
Its purpose is to allow the process of birthing self and faith to proceed, rather than to be squashed by rhetoric, denial and avoidance. It provides a safe, loving and non-judgmental environment to search the fabric of our lives, the innermost depths of the soul, an opportunity to be supported through bereavement and grief and a lighted path to discover forgiveness and reconciliation.
Mourning and grieving are necessary milestones which must be passed so that our lives can continue. When this process is complete there is re-birth and resurrection. There is new life within our spirit which gives us hope in the future. There is an opportunity to explore our lives, and appreciate our human fragility. Through a very personal and intimate encounter with the Living God, we come to know that God knows and loves us despite our many weaknesses and human failures.
Rachel's Vineyard weekends for healing after abortion are offered throughout the year in locations across the United States and Canada, with additional sites around the world. Rachel’s Vineyard is a ministry of Priests for Life.
The program is an opportunity to examine your abortion experience, identify the ways that the loss has impacted you in the past and present, and helps to acknowledge any unresolved feelings that many individuals struggle with after abortion. Because of the emotional numbness and secrecy that often surrounds an abortion experience, conflicting emotions both during and after the event may remain unresolved. These buried feelings can surface later and may be symptoms of post abortion trauma.
To find a retreat in your area, Use this link. Click on the country in which you live to find the closest retreat in your area.
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