Even when life breaks what we hoped for, something within us remains- ready to be gathered, held, and gently restored.

Thank you for your interest in our women’s retreats!!  We are pleased to offer a brand new retreat this year —a women's wellness day retreat—for all women impacted by a loved one‘s substance use! 🦋 

My name is Rhonda Miller, but I am best known here because I am Ben‘s (and Alex’s) mom. My journey began when my youngest son, Ben, was just 16, struggling with fitting in and finding his place in this world. Like many teens, he experimented, but when he was introduced to opioids, he was pulled into a horrific addiction he was unable to control. Throughout eight years, I lived the roller coaster of hope and grief. I had very little support through those painful years; few could understand what I could not even understand. On August 1, 2016, one week before his 24th birthday, we tragically lost our precious Ben to fentanyl poisoning. The devastation (and the many secondary losses) have been very difficult to navigate alone.

Two years later, my family and I founded a nonprofit, Speak Up for Ben, Inc. to speak out and educate regarding the dangers of opioid misuse, and to offer support to those struggling and to their families. With the aid of Northampton County, we opened OASIS to help families throughout all the stages of grief experienced when a loved one lives with a substance use condition— and to offer compassionate support to families who lost their loved one. This retreat is an extension of the grief support we offer.  While serving our families, I have obtained professional training to best support our grief recovery. I have been credentialed by grief expert and author David Kessler as a Certified Grief Educator, by the Grief Recovery Institute as a Grief Recovery Specialist, and am currently being trained by grief expert and author Dr. Alan Wolfelt. Combined with my lived experience, these trainings have aided me tremendously in my mission to support our many grieving families. 

We are pleased to offer this year's retreat hosted by The Hearth at Heyer’s Mill in the bucolic countryside of Nazareth, Pennsylvania.   The focus will be on wellness, building a life with meaning, and finding joy and peace. We are not clinicians, but sister travelers on this journey..... Surrounded by God’s love, and the friendship, support, and care of one another, we learn we can gently restore our serenity, and find tranquility with every new day. We welcome you to join us… as we come together to learn, laugh, love and heal.  💔❤️‍🩹 ❤️