She Speaks...He Speaks!

Last June, I attended the She Speaks Conference put on by Proverbs 31 Ministries in Concord North Carolina. It was one of the best weekends of my entire life. When I first heard about the conference, it was already full. But I put my name on the waiting list, and asked God to make a way for me to go.

A few weeks later, they notified me that more spots opened up, and it was a go! But the hotel was full, so I had to reserve a room down the road. Since I was headed there alone, I really wanted to stay at the conference hotel. Again I asked God to make a way for me to stay there.

Two days before I left, in the middle of Target, I heard a loud thought (God) say, "Go home and check with Embassy Suites." I went online, and my reservation went through. So I called the hotel directly, just to confirm. There had been two cancellations for a weekend that had been sold out for months, and the representative on the line assumed I was a lucky person.

But I knew it was God’s hand working out details of my life, and I shared that with the person on the line. I bubbled over with thankfulness that HE wanted me at She Speaks, enough to open up a spot from the waiting list and to save a room in the hotel just for me.

Driving down the road that Friday, I spent some time asking God one thing: Am I chasing MY dream, or Yours? Because if it was just mine, I didn’t want to want it anymore. I had learned some things about the publishing industry, and none of it seemed to be a good fit for me.

So on my way to She Speaks, I told the Lord, "I know I can write, but I just can't do that other stuff; I wouldn't even know how to. You know who I am Lord--the one people don't notice, the one people forget, the one who gets overlooked--so if you could just take this dream of sharing my words with the world away this weekend, my life would feel a lot easier."

It didn't seem like the right prayer to pray on my way to a writer's conference, but it was my heart that day. A big part of me thought He was going to take away my dream of being a writer while I was there, and I went into the conference that afternoon feeling free.

The first night, one of my favorite speakers and writers, Lysa Terkeurst, opened up with a message called, "Developing the Character to Match my Calling". After a couple of stories from her life that were oh-so-similar to my own, she talked about David. Would you believe that the first point she made was this: "David was OVERLOOKED by everyone else but hand-picked by God."

In a room that seemed filled with Him, God taught me that He has used all the events of my life, even those little moments that made big impressions on me, and the days I felt up to my elbows in dirty diapers and baby food, to prepare and equip me for the jobs He'll give me to do. Oh, and just maybe, I’m still there, in the fields of everyday life, still being prepared for what He’ll do through me.

Before dinner Saturday night, I went running in the blanket of heat that is summer in North Carolina, and again, I prayed. "Lord, I am going back and forth about embracing this calling right now. Sometimes I feel sure that You made me to write, and other times I think it was just for my journal. Will you give me something to confirm that you have called me to do this? Like you did for Gideon--you gave him several things that could ONLY have been YOU. Can you just give me something like that, because then I won't doubt it?"

I went on to recount the times I thought God had already called me to write for His purposes. “I really do feel like Gideon right now, asking for another confirmation,” I said, “but I just need to know this is You and not just me."

At dinner, I met up with some girls I had met the first night for some awesome worship and great conversation. Then Renee Swope delivered a message called "Beyond the Shadow of Doubt."

After making us roll with laughter, she said, "Ladies, let's open up to Judges 6. We're going to look at a guy called Gideon." And I cried. The girls at my table must have wondered what was so emotional about opening Bibles to the book of Judges.

All I could think about was that God planned this for me long ago. He knew the prayers I would pray earlier that day, the doubts, the questions. He prompted Renee to prepare this message for the conference, and for me. His love not only reaches to the heavens. That night, it filled the place. It filled me.

Later that night, I found myself in a spa-like room labeled, The Prayer Room, where God met me again, loud and clear, just me and Him. He used a lady who I had never met before to pray some words over me about my worth in God’s eyes and His purposes for me. I might have called the experience strange, only I knew better by then. It was God using her to speak His words! I had no doubt about that.

I went to She Speaks, asking for confirmation of my calling--or my non-calling rather--and God gently reminded me over and over that it was not about ME at all, but about Him. He gave me signs to confirm that I am called, and I should keep moving in that direction.

If you are a speaker or writer or women’s ministry leader (or if you want to be any of those things), consider coming to She Speaks this year! You can find out more about the scholarship they are giving away here: She Speaks Scholarship. I encourage you to pray about it and GO. I feel certain you’ll find God there, and you just might never be the same!