WARNING - this is a long, wordy post, mostly written for my memory banks and for anyone else who might need to hear it!
I was blessed to go to a conference in Atlanta, GA a couple of weekends ago with my sister, Mom, and two dear childhood friends called Deeper Still. Beth Moore, Priscilla
Shirer, and Kay Arthur were the speakers, and praise and worship were led by Travis
Cotrell and his praise band as well as
Mandisa. I really can't put into words what the experience meant to me . . the Lord used it to minister to me in ways that I was hungry for, thirsty for, and in ways that I had no clue I had need of a word from HIM in.
Mom had asked me months ago if I was interested in attending, but at the time with the uncertainty of not knowing if we would be moving, what our summer would hold, etc, I had put off committing to going. She offered to fly my sister and I there with her airline miles if we would go, and we would stay with my dear friend, Jenn S. who lives close to the area - that along with just WANTING and NEEDING to be there convinced me to just do it! I'm so thankful for my sweet mom who encouraged me and made it possible to be there!!
Monica and I flew out EARLY Friday morning . . .and figured out we did not calculate just how much time we would need to get to the airport and found ourselves running to the gate, being ecstatic that they OPENED UP THE DOOR and let us on the plane (oops!), only to realize once we were there that although we were running at a fast clip, apparently, our bags were not. They didn't quite make it to Birmingham with the flight (Southwest doesn't fly into Atlanta, unfortunately), so once Mom and Tiffany got there, we all got to hang out together cruising in our rental car in good
ol' downtown Birmingham until early afternoon when our sweet little bags arrived on the next flight in from Dallas. Oh well. I have to say that unless we just really missed something huge, I wouldn't recommend a sightseeing trip to downtown Birmingham. Um, I'm not exactly sure why we chose to go there, but we figured there would be at least some quaint
girly restaurant or something there. Not so much - we ended up eating a nice lunch with all the other employees of the Alabama Power Company. Yes, that's right - we ate lunch in the cafeteria of a large electric company in down town Birmingham. Made us giggle, but we resisted the urge to snap a pic of ourselves like good tourists (Monica would have left us for sure).
Once we had our bags in hand, we were off to Atlanta to meet Jen at the conference. Have you ever been at a conference with 20,000 other women who were excited to praise Jesus and hear a word from the Lord? It was amazing. Priscilla spoke Friday night, and she had a powerful message that rocked me pretty good. One of the songs we worshipped in was "Strength Will Rise as We Wait Upon the Lord" - I had to stop and just absorb that one for a bit. I've been and will continue to be in a season of waiting on the Lord . . .in a couple of different areas of my life, but the most pronounced one for me right now is with Donny's job change from Sprint to working with his brother with
1429 Creative. The uncertainty of where we will be and what both of us will be doing a few months from now goes in waves of scaring me to death, getting me very excited about what the Lord will do, and making me feel very uncertain and insecure.
Back to the conference: Priscilla spoke mostly from the book of Exodus when the Israelites were in a season of wandering the desert. The wilderness can be a very scary thing. For some it's tragic events like divorce, death, loss . . .things that make you ask, "Where in the world is God in this?" Something I wrote in my journal that Priscilla shared was, " . .sometimes it's in the furthest place away from where we would feel like the place of blessing is, is where God wants me to be . . .so I will be able to receive blessing from Him." The had part about the "wilderness" is knowing that God actually CHOOSES it for me. Nothing happens to me that He doesn't know about or ordain. I pray that in any "wilderness" that I find myself in, that I recognize not only that the Lord is there with me, but also that He has chosen that path for me. My choice is will I push Him away or draw near? In Exodus 19:2, I learn that I am more safe, more protected IN the wilderness of God than out of the wilderness WITHOUT Him. Glory to His name!
Priscilla also reminded us that we are called to remember and recount all He has done in the past - when I start making lists of all the ways the Lord has delivered my life in my 35 years, I only see
faithfulness. He's never left, never abandoned, never led me where He wasn't already there. He is good.
Can you tell I really was touched by her message? I'm so glad the Lord gave it to her to share . .even with just me.
Saturday morning, Kay Arthur came with a powerful, HARD message - she could hardly begin speaking for the tears that came with the message. It was a message on the dangerous state of our country. She had us examine scriptures in Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah and Hosea that had to do with the state of the nation of Israel when it was rebelling, turning from God and looking only to itself. It was a time of rebellion, of
worldliness, of apathy (sound like any society you know of??). God sent prophets to warn the people. They ignored the warning - their hearts were hard. God brought judgement upon them. Judgement that impacted the future of their nation. I'm having a hard time putting everything she said into this account . . .but basically she was begging us all to be on our knees for this country, asking God to cause hearts to turn to Him before it is too late and before He brings judgement on this nation in ways that will devastate not only us, but our
descendants forever. I wrote down a quote that stuck with me, "It is NOT the desire of God to bring judgement and calamity, rather, it is necessity of His character when we disobey Him." He is holy - and without being covered by His blood, we are NOT. Here are 7 things she encouraged us to do in light of these dangerous times:
1. Jeremiah 4:3 Break up the fallow ground, the hardness of our soul.
2. Jeremiah 9:17-18 Mourn - ask the Lord to break your heart with the things that break His
3. Jeremiah 36:37 PRAY fervently and passionately for all in authority over this country to love God's Word!
4. Jeremiah 31:3 Love others as Jesus loved them
5. Jeremiah 20:7 Love God's word
6. Jeremiah 31:31 Introduce people to Jesus
7. REST - when you know you are doing what God would have you do, REST in Him
I loved Beth's talk in the afternoon - she taught on John 1:14, which is "The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us and we have seen His glory - the glory of the One and only, who came from the Father full of grace and truth." I smile as I type this because she spoke on each phrase
separately, and had all 20,000 women be active learners of this scripture. Each section in the arena had a phrase they stood up and spoke together, so by the end of the teaching, it was like doing the wave through the arena as we spoke the word of God with hand motions! LOVED it!!
That was the conference - so very good. And my time at sweet Jen's house - so very special! Friends of Jen who have actually made it to this point in the post, you need to know that she has not done her fun golf cart community there in Peach Tree City justice!!! We got a guided golf cart tour, and it was AWESOME!! I'll post pictures later so you can see what I mean, but it is so cool. You need to go be a guest at hotel
Seimer and check it out for yourselves.
Well, I fell better now that I got some of my thought down (some are too private for the WWW, and that's
ok - they can stay between me and my Jesus). Blessings -
We had good ol' burgers and hot dogs Friday night. Annie discovered the sweetness of Blue Bell . . and couldn't believe Pawpaw didn't give every bite to her!! He was mean and teased her a bit, too. It was pretty funny to watch.
Cousin bathtime is the BEST!!
We went to the Gaylord Texan after dinner to take a look around and show it to Mom, who had never been there yet. I always love walking around that place. This time was extra fun for the boys since we got to ride the little shuttle bus from visitor parking to the hotel.
The Sorrells women didn't mean to be red-white-and blue, but we thought we were pretty cute for being the flag in our outfits!
My cute little fourth of July bunch!
Nonny and Pawpaw and their precious ones!
We started out the mornings after a leisurely breakfast with a game of pajama baseball and putting in the pj's
I love this one for 2 reasons: 1. Nothing cuter than a little baby girl doing a bear crawl around the yard. 2. I love it that cousin Colby is swatting her on the hiney as she passes by!
We had a nice walk over to our neighborhood park one morning, and I love listening to this little conversation that Tyler was having with my parents about their cat, Jinga, who recently died. He has such a sensitive heart, and really was concerned about how they were doing after losing Jinga . . .I love my little Tyler!