Thursday night I traveled to the great state of Ooooklahoma, where Debs lives. (And yes, I totally sang the song all weekend long. The resident Oklahomians loved me for it.)
I'm about to show you an array of pictures in non-chronological order. (See aforementioned brain cell thing.)
Doors opened an hour and a half before the conference began. If you're there an hour and a half before that, this is what you'll see. What can I say?
We had an hour and a half to take pictures of each other.
Once we entered the arena, the early arrival paid off and we had great seats!
For the next hour and a half we played Scrabble on Debs' fancy phone and pretended to be the teachers. I think 9,000 women would have been a tad ticked off (and in serious trouble!) if that had been the case.
Thankfully the real teachers showed up.
It was really fun seeing them interact.
Before each teaching session, they prayed for each other.
Kay Arthur taught for two solid hours on Friday night. She walked us through the entire book of Hebrews and while doing so, managed to quote every other book in the Bible, at least twice. She's a 76 year old fireball and I loved every minute of what she taught. One thing that stood out in her message was the concept of rest. Hebrews 4 explains that rest for our soul is available to us if we hear the message and combine it with our faith.
This is us on Saturday morning. We arrived at 6:30 (AM) running on five hours of sleep. And we had the seats to prove it.
They started the morning off with a rap.
One of the hip-hop artists leaving the stage.
Two of Priscilla's sons made a guest appearance and they were sooo cute!
Priscilla taught during the morning session. The verses she used were Ephesians 3:20-21, and she explained how God does exceedingly, abundantly more than we can ask or imagine. He goes beyond our beyond. She explained there's a time, turning, truth, transcendence and totality of God's ability. Believing He is able in our circumstances is our responsibility. Whether or not He acts is up to His sovereignty.
We sat near the hearing impaired seating. Lifeway provides an interpreter for them and I had to take her picture. She signed throughout the entire event, even during worship. It was beautiful to watch because even though I know very few signs, girlfriend was speaking my language. There was something so touching about watching her worship with just her arms and the expressions on her face. Tractor beam sucked me right in. I gawked and gawked.
Do you see those glass panels behind the worship leaders? They were out in the lobby areas for us to sign and were covered in our prayer requests.
Here are some of the other women who came with us.
Just got done praying for Beth.
Beth was the finale. :) She taught on spiritual discernment and knowing when to trust our instinct. She explained that a critical nature, jealousy, selfishness and emotions all hinder our ability for acting on that instinct.
During the last worship session an artist came out and painted this over all our prayer requests.
I'll finish with this. Not only did Dan keep Reesie all weekend long feeding, bathing, dressing, multiple birthday party attending, shopping, etc so I could go out of town, but when I returned they had an early Christmas surprise waiting for me. He had hired a professional cleaner to come clean all the carpet in our house. The entire house was spotless. I was shocked. Then he had two ladies with an eye for design come and rearrange the furniture in our living room to better accomodate the Christmas tree that was up and ready to be decorated. Oh yes he did.
In conclusion, I think I can correctly discern that I'm at rest with a man who is exceedingly, abundantly beyond anything I'd ever deserve.
Amen and amen.
Yes, that boy is a wonder!!!!! CJ
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