Friday night and Saturday morning I had the privilege of sharing the Personality Puzzle Workshop with the women attending the Victory Church Women’s Retreat in Lancaster, PA. What a wonderful experience.
I loved the combindation of ages between teens to sixties. It’s certainly a sign of a healthy group to have such a wide span of ages present. Their hunger to learn, warm response and keen observations during processing blessed me.
Laughter, quietness, intensity and competition filled the room as the women completed the puzzle interaction. What an intersting experience seeing the different personalities in play. The women at one table were quiet, reserved and steadily working — Peaceful Phlegmatics and Perfect Melancholies for sure. At another table the ladies were just the opposite. On their feet standing and bending over their puzzle pieces they were intense on winning as they worked quickly together to get the puzzle done. Every once in awhile we could hear screams of joy as they progressed and they never quit talking in the process. Yes, you guessed it, they were the Purposeful, Powerful Cholerics and Playful , Popular Sanguines.
Most of the other tables were a combination of the four personalities with the Powerful Choleric barking instructions, Sanguines talking everone through the process and others dutifully following the instructions or just sitting and watching. It was interesting to hear one Powerfl Choleric actally request the ladies at her table to “find the edges first” rather than demand them. Her firend explained that she had learned that skill as a teacher of small children. There’s hope for us yet, Cholerics.
As usual, one lady didn’t want to participate in all the fun. Was she a serious Melancholy who didn’t like to waste her time on such firvolity? Or was she a purposeful Choleric who realized it wasn’t worthy of her commitment? Maybe she was a Peaceful Phlegmatic who just didn’t feel like expending that much energy after a hard week of work. One thing for sure, she wasn’t a Playful Sanguine; they are always ready for fun.
Along with the laughter were some tears as we shared the emotional needs of each of the personalities. One lady had taken time to invest in herself as her husband took over at home with their special needs child. I pray that her whole family benefits from what she learned. As I watch their faces I knew that God was speaking to their hearts and elping them apply the truth – “it okay to be me and I am valuable just because I’m His.”
Being energized by being with so many women, the Sanguine in Kathy and I decided to have some fun and go shopping at the Craft and Flower Warehouse in Blue Ball before coming home. Then since I’m a Choleric I risked using a different route to get from Blue Ball to Gap and onto Route 41. It was a winding, narrow road with a speed limit of 45 but it only took us twenty minutes to drive what would have been a sixty minute drive another way. We saved forty minutes just because I was willing to leae a different way.
Hopefully, the ladies left the retreat different than when they arrived. They risked their precious free time on Friday night and Saturday morning. Time that could have been spent with family and chores. I hope the time and heart they risked will far outweigh the cost. May they go a differnt way.
