She Speaks

Yesterday at the closing of the She Speaks weekend, one of the speakers asked us to stand up if we had come to the conference for one thing, but discovered something else entirely while we were there. I shot up out of my chair because that was me.

If you read my old blog, you will see that I posted there before the conference about how excited I was to go. I was positively giddy with anticipation. And yet, strangely enough, by Saturday I was ready to go home. In fact, I did go home Saturday night. I slept in my own bed, got ready in my own bathroom and returned for the service on Sunday morning feeling much better.

And yet, something had changed in my heart. I am still trying to name that something, to pray my way through it, to embrace what God has showed me. And in the meantime I am trying to discern what it is God is doing-- and why.

I do know that God began something in me last year at She Speaks that was surprising and really hard. It took a long time to navigate through all the emotions and discoveries birthed out of that weekend last year. And, to be honest, I thought we (me and God) had covered that ground already. So for some of those feelings to get dredged up this year was unexpected. I am trying to deal with that.

When the speaker team and staff went into the prayer room after the conference ended to pray and share stories, I didn't go. I took my daughter, who had attended with me, and we hightailed it to lunch-- just the two of us. We sat and talked over our favorite pizza and just savored a few minutes alone. It was beautiful and I thought to myself, "This has been the best part of the whole weekend."

Today I am tired, but recovering. I have a lot of house cleaning to do. And also just need to love on my kids. I will post more later about what God is showing me, and how I am going to respond. I have to figure that out first, though!