Girls of Grace

The Girls of Grace conference was awesome!  I felt so blessed and renewed after this great day of being ministered to by some great speakers and singers!  Below is Naomi and I ready for a fun day ahead!

 Here I am with the other "moms" :)  

 Naomi and her friends we came with.  Yes she is the same age as them, she's just little :)  She takes after my husband's side of the family.

 Here we are with the Sidewalk Prophets.  They were the best part of the day for me.  I love all of their songs.  The first time I ever heard, The Words I Would Say, I cried and told my kids I was dedicating that song to them.  It still makes me cry every time I hear it, and they opened up with that song.  You could see how much they love the Lord when they sing and it was amazing to be able to sing along with them in worship.  They have a powerful testimony and I felt so blessed to be able to hear them sing live.

 Below is Meredith Andrews.  I fell in love with her.  SO genuine, such a passion for serving Christ!  She lead the worship music throughout the day and lead most of the prayers.  I would LOVE to meet her in person.  She is someone who I just wish I could be real life friends with!  She inspired me in a lot of ways, but I guess the biggest thing was to also be genuine!  You could tell she was just being herself and that she loved what she does and does it for the glory of God and not men!

 Below is Annie Downs.  She was one of the speakers.  She is funny!!  She talked about using our words to glorify God.  She has a blog, it is annieblogs.com, check her out, I think you will like her!

 And here is Britt Nicole!  She's kind of like my Naomi, tiny, lol!!  She's just a little thing but sure has a big voice!  She wasn't my favorite only because it was almost like a rock star concert.  All the younger girls went to the front and were trying to touch her and stuff.  The music was LOUD and you couldn't really hear the words.  I know most of her songs, so I knew the words, but it was hard to worship along with her.  But that was just MY opinion!   She was definitely a hit for the younger girls, and that was really what this day was for!

 And below are all of the speakers and artists from the day.  The first 3 from the left are Point of Grace! They are the MC's and they did sing a few of their songs too.  I couldn't help but think of everything they must sacrifice to fulfill this ministry.  They all have kids, and they must have to leave them on weekends that they do their conferences.  They did say that their kids sometimes come with them, but mostly not.  I think about how busy our weekends are and how much stuff my kids are involved in and wonder like I very often do, if it's too much!  Are my priorities out of balance?   Am I putting God first?Am I teaching my kids that God comes first?  

Lastly I want to share for myself mostly, what I took home from this conference!  I got two things out of this.  The first one is that I really need and want to keep praying for my kids!  I want to relax and pray and let God work in their lives.  I very often think and stress about their future.  My kids are smart and very athletic!  I feel pressure for them to be very successful as adults, either in athletics or in career choice!  I feel like they have to be on the best sports team, the best classes, can't miss an important sports camp for fear they may get behind, or if they don't do well on one assignment they may lower their grade!!  I KNOW that is wrong!  I realized this weekend after listening to some of the struggles that some of these speakers have had and God's seen them through, that GOD is IN CONTROL!  I KNOW that, but I'm so guilty of still worrying and trying to control things myself!  I found some peace, that God has a plan for them, and it may not be anything that I ever could have dreamed up.  My job as the parent is to PRAY, discipline, disciple, encourage and LOVE them!  I need God's help to do all of that, but HE will take care of the rest!

Secondly, it's probably not surprising after what I just said about my kids, that I put all of those same expectations on MYSELF!  I always blamed it on being a first born!  I don't like to do things that I'm not good at.  I stick to things I am good at, but even those things, I often get burnt out on because the newness or the feeling of being good at it wears off.  For example, being a personal trainer!  God's given me a passion for it.  But, there has been several times over the years, and I have to admit, just recently, that I have wanted to quit.  I feel like I'm not as good at it as I should be, or there are other trainers just starting at our gym who are better, look better, or they are male and many women want a male trainer.  But it has hit me recently that it DOESN'T MATTER IF I'M NOT GOOD AT IT!  God has given me a passion for it and has CALLED me to do it!  Therefore if I do it for his Glory and do it the best I can for HIM, then I'm PERFECT at it and I'm the best personal trainer out there!!  You know what I mean?  Satan wants me to believe I'm not good at it.  He wants me to ONLY see the negative!  But, there is a lot more positive then negative.  If I open my eyes, I see that over the years I have had so many clients that have stuck with me, I've had several write ups in the local papers about me and what I'm doing with my teams and clients, and I hear people say all the time, oh, I've heard about you!  And it's all positive.  SO, I'm NOT saying this to toot my own horn, but I'm realizing that I need to wake up everyday and say, ok God, what are we going to do today?  How are you going to use me today as I get the opportunity to engage one on one, or in groups, or in front of a whole group of people?  HE gave me this passion!  I went into the gym today with some new found confidence!  Not in me, but in Christ who lives through me!  I felt a little bolder, a little kinder, a little more patient, gentle, compassionate, a little more humble!  Thank you God!