Retreating

(My next post on rest is nearly ready.  I want another week to make it better.  I’d rather spend another week than put out something that is much too scattered.  It will still be scattered, because that’s just my brain, but I’m hoping to at least make it less scattered. )


I was so blessed this last weekend with a trip to Denver, Colorado where I attended a Mom Heart Conference.  I went with my friend Annalise, and we were so blessed.  The conference is held is one of the nicest hotels I have stayed in, and since I went there last year, I knew it was going to be so worth it.

Last year, I went with my friend Sonja, and since there was a blizzard back at home we sort of had to skip around from flight to flight, trying to fly standby on a few flights, and just so barely getting 3 hours from home, and finally 2 days after the conference, we made it home to our exhausted husbands and needy children.

This weekend I was so relieved to see clear weather both at home and at the conference.  I was crossing my fingers everything would go smoothly this time, and I wouldn’t come home exhausted.  I decided to rent a car this time instead of a shuttle, as it ended up being cheaper.

I met some amazing people, and cried to total strangers more than once, and the conference ended and I felt so encouraged as it finished.  I will probably be writing from what I learned there for a few months.  Here are some of my favorite blurbs from my frantically written notes:

-Like Esther, we are placed to parent our children for such a time as this.  In this age of technology and global information, and cell phones and instant everything, we were placed here, to parent our children for this time.

-If you are faithful in the hidden places, the hidden places will become the foundation of your story.

-Teach your children to worship God with their mind.  Teach them stories, teach them Scripture, teach them art and music.  Give them a sense of awe.  Show how to worship God with your mind.

-“To believe is to obey, and to obey is to believe.” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

-The Bible is the Holy Spirit’s vocabulary.  He does not violate truth to speak to you, he uses truth to speak to you.

-C.S. Lewis wasn’t just a brilliant writer.  He wrote out of the character that was developed in the hidden places.

-What would you do if you weren’t afraid?  What dreams have died in my life where I live in disappointment, leaving me with “fumes of faith.” What would you do if you had no fear that God would fail you.  

-Revelation 12:11

-God was the perfect father, and Adam and Eve had everything they needed, and yet they still made a bad choice.  We can train and meet needs, but it will boil down to our children making their own choices with the instruction and love that we have given them.

-Love is redeeming.

-Integrity in parenting is your children knowing you are trustworthy.  Consistency=integrity=builds trust.

Ok, so there’s so much more I want to write than all of that.  I really had some amazing, amazing quiet times in the word and prayer, and that trumped all of the speakers.  (Sorry Sally. 😉 )  I was really looking for some clarity right now in my life, and I came really expecting God to make a way clear for me.  I was fully expecting for this fog to lift on where God is leading me.  I was really expecting that to happen through a person at this weekend.  A specific person actually.  There was someone there who just knows everyone in the blogging world.  She is so well connected, and I had been emailing her, and she was just so sweet and receptive, and I took a step of faith and asked about doing some training with me.

She said she’s not doing that right now, but stay connected, and when she does start up training sessions again, hopefully I can nab up that opportunity if I’m fast enough.

So…no fog lifted.  No clear path.  Besides “wait” and we all know that’s the most frustrating instruction to receive.  I went up to my room and started crying.  (This was one of those times where I cried to someone I barely knew.)  90% of my tears were just because I was tired.  I know I’m not the only lady out there who cries when someone blows on her when she’s tired.  It was a late night.  I was away from home.  I was honestly still exhausted and I just started crying.  I went up to my room and started a bath.

As I sat there praying in the bathtub, I asked God why he didn’t present the clarity like I had expected?  I was expecting to meet someone here, and someone who knew what the next step would be for me.  God spoke to my heart, gently as always, and said,

“Am I not connected enough for you?  Do I not have a large enough network?  You mean you were looking for a person, who might have some more tangible advice to give you than I would?”

It was a moment of humbling.  It was a moment of clarity.  It was what I had traveled all this way for…for that moment.  Walking by faith is forever frustrating because you can’t see.  You can’t see 5 years ahead.  You have to trust.  You have to believe.  You have to walk seeing just the step in front of you only.  It’s the most beautiful, exciting, thrilling journey, but sometime’s it’s just hard.

But honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

(And tomorrow, I’ll tell you all about how my rental car blew a tire on the way back from a restaurant late at night just after the conference ended, and I was stranded on Interstate 25 for an hour or so with my friend as we were headed back to the hotel, as the rental car company’s computers were down and therefore so was roadside assistance   Yes, it appears every Mom Heart Conference I go to has some kind of adventure in store.)