She Speaks but HE SPOKE 2008 part 1

I'm sitting here watching this cursor on this page flash on, off, on, off wondering how can I even begin to put these thoughts into words! For those of you who don't know (ha ha, if you read this blog you have heard nothing BUT this) I had the incredible and I mean I-N-C-R-E-D-I-B-L-E opportunity to attend the She Speaks conference this weekend! I have a feeling this will be a several posts deal, since there is just to much to put into just one post on this. And, I feel that those who have invested in me should know the outcome of their obedience to the Lord leading them to give.

First, let me just say, I was nervous, nervous, nervous! But I knew and felt the prayers of those that had loved on me not only that day but days before in e-mails, phone calls and lot's of hugs. And my two great friends covered me with prayer before I left, filled my heart with confidence in Christ and sweet generous thoughts but eventually sent me on my way! I wanted to stay put in that safe place with them! But I knew it was time to go.

And as my man dropped me off at the hotel door, alone, my heart was pounding! I took one last look back at him and smiled. I then took my shaky breaky heart into this enormous beautiful hotel and began my She Speaks journey. As I clopped and clapped my shoes through those marble floors heading to "check in", butterflies, excitement and joy filled my soul. I had arrived.

I looked around and I began to see how many beautiful, well put-together women there were! There were some sitting at tables talking, and I imagined they were whispering to each other the hopes and dreams that God had filled their hearts with. Other's were sitting at tables by themselves quickly clicking away on laptops perhaps finishing up important pieces that they would be submitting to publishers. And even other's were meeting and re-uniting for the first time! It was truly a precious sight!

I made my way up to the 7th floor and entered into the room where I would find little sleep over the next few nights. I noticed that my roommate's things were there, but she was not. I saw a set of curlers in the bathroom and a few cute dresses in the closet. So I knew that she must have long curly hair and was dressed cute, and I made a mental note to look for someone like that!

I set my things down and took one last DEEP breath as I headed to the blogger reception. As I walked into this room of complete "strangers" to every day life, but not to this community of blogging. My heart started beating faster. "What if they all think I'm a dweeb?" I took another deep breath, walked in and I scanned the room for someone! Anyone! And then I heard the sweetest quiet southern accent say, "Hey Nicki!" And I looked, and I realized it was my sweet blogger friend, Jenny! She is cute as can be! And really nice! Here is a picture of her and I and also Amy Brooke and I. She is also SOOO sweet!!






We chatted and met a few other bloggers but to be quite honest, I felt like I was at a play group for the first time, you know where everyone knows you by your child's name? "Hi, I'm Taylor's mom and whose mom are you?" and instead it was, "Hi, I'm three girly girls, and your blog is?" It was actually funny! I didn't stay long and I didn't get to meet BooMama because the girl is just to darn popular! Every time I wanted to say hello to her someone else was deeply sharing their common bonds with her like her love for diet coke and her bulldogs. =) But she was everything I expected her to be. Southern, Sassy and cute!

As I made my way towards that big scary conference room, where I knew the presence of God was going to overwhelm me, peace finally set in. It was fun to meet bloggers, but I knew I was there to meet my God and learn, grasp and understand all that He had in store for me. Sitting with a few ladies from church made things a little more comfortable but all I kept thinking was, "Lord I'm so ready for this!".

Few moments passed where my heart still didn't race thinking about what was ahead of me. As Lysa Terkeurst took the stage and began to capture my heart with her words, my friend sitting next to me passed me a note that said, "This is the exact verse that God told me to tell you the other day." My eyes got big and my ears opened up to all that God was saying. It was coming into full circle.

To be continued...