Can a single weekend away teach you the secret of contentment?

Close to 340 women assembled at Stanwell Tops to see how the Mary Andrews College Conference could bring focus to what can be a fuzzy yearning.

A recent survey asked women what they want; approximately 70 per cent identified "loving relationships' as number one priority.

Archdeacon for Women's Ministry and Principal of Mary Andrews College, Narelle Jarrett began by challenging her listeners to aim higher.

"Biblical contentment is gained by making the decision to trust God," she says. "Regardless of loving or unloving relationships, or of circumstance, or of grief or even of happiness."

Archdeacon Jarrett introduced the conference to four individuals who based their lives on that "secret of contentment'.

Her audience learned hard lessons drawn from the lives of Job and Paul who expressed contentment in the face of desperate ordeals.

And in the flesh, attendees met Maureen Cripps, who suffers from Motor Neurone Disease, and Amanda Garlato, who was widowed 6 years ago with 3 teenagers to raise on her own.

Each spoke of her contentment in God through and despite severe physical and emotional suffering.

One participant summed up the weekend of heartening teaching.

"I have come away with a trust that can look beyond the often damaging things people say and look to Christ instead."