I couldn't fall asleep last night until I got up and wrote this post, because I felt guilty about leaving something important out of my last post on the She Speaks Conference.
Alright. In the interest of honesty I have something to confess about my last post. I said something to the effect of "I don't need to shine except when God shines through me because I've spent so much time with him, blah, blah, blah."
And that's mostly true. I believed it and desired it before, during, and especially since the conference.
But there was something about that post which gave Satan a small & seemingly insignificant victory over me and my desire to serve God: it wasn't the whole truth. The part I left out was that I wanted to shine because, well, hello! I'm Jen and I shine and I'm wonderful and everyone wants me. Not necessarily because of God - there was a small part of me that went into the conference feeling like I could take him or leave him. It breaks my heart to write that.
But it's true. And a major part of what I would like to do for all women in the church is to remove the secrecy from our real-life struggles & pains and get to our hearts. I would love to see frank, open, honest discussions and teaching. And Satan would love to undermine that by having me start off my service and ministry with a lie.
So I'm telling the embarrassing, humbling, scary, ugly truth. Because I don't want to give Satan a leg-up in my life or anyone else's. Now you know. I wanted to be "discovered" by more than just God at that speakers' conference. And by his grace, I wasn't "discovered" and offered any contracts or speaking engagements. And so I continue right where I started, but with all the benefits mentioned in my last post. And I like it here.
Saturday, August 8
Friday, August 7
reaffirmed for me in charlotte
I mentioned that I went to the annual She Speaks Conference in Nineveh, a.k.a. Charlotte, NC. The best summary I can come up with, leaving aside funny stories and amazing (but lengthy, even for my standards) details, is the following list of truths that were reaffirmed for me:
God is good.
God loves me personally. No, he is passionate about me personally.
God is so big that he can call 600 women into some sort of ministry and not start issuing notices that his program for ministry is impacted.
God knows me up and down, in and out, for better and for worse. And he's still passionate about me.
God will provide for me, right down to a perfect-for-me roommate who was just what I needed.
I really am supposed to be doing this.
My heart-of-heart's desire to just sit at his feet and keep learning, keep serving, and keep allowing him to choose which doors to open, was exactly where he wanted me & wants me still.
God's people can be the most encouraging, helpful people around.
There were also a few who were less than encouraging and helpful. Which is a lesson to me that I am Christ's ambassador and I'd better watch my step. People have enough opportunity to throw me into this group already, and I'd better clean up my act.
The most brilliant ministry leaders are the ones who follow hard after Christ. I could name names, but I'd hate to leave anyone out. All the women on the team were wonderful.
When I am shining the most brilliantly, it won't be because of the way I speak, the "wisdom" I have, or what I look like. It won't be because everyone is in love with me. It will be because I've spent so much time in the tent of meeting that I will glow radiantly with the love of Christ. So I need to keep checking my selfish ambition and remember what my heart-of-heart's desire is.
My own gifts and abilities, without Christ's enabling, are worthless.
And now I'm gonna go see my Jesus for a while.
Join me, will you? Right there at the computer.
God is good.
God loves me personally. No, he is passionate about me personally.
God is so big that he can call 600 women into some sort of ministry and not start issuing notices that his program for ministry is impacted.
God knows me up and down, in and out, for better and for worse. And he's still passionate about me.
God will provide for me, right down to a perfect-for-me roommate who was just what I needed.
I really am supposed to be doing this.
My heart-of-heart's desire to just sit at his feet and keep learning, keep serving, and keep allowing him to choose which doors to open, was exactly where he wanted me & wants me still.
God's people can be the most encouraging, helpful people around.
There were also a few who were less than encouraging and helpful. Which is a lesson to me that I am Christ's ambassador and I'd better watch my step. People have enough opportunity to throw me into this group already, and I'd better clean up my act.
The most brilliant ministry leaders are the ones who follow hard after Christ. I could name names, but I'd hate to leave anyone out. All the women on the team were wonderful.
When I am shining the most brilliantly, it won't be because of the way I speak, the "wisdom" I have, or what I look like. It won't be because everyone is in love with me. It will be because I've spent so much time in the tent of meeting that I will glow radiantly with the love of Christ. So I need to keep checking my selfish ambition and remember what my heart-of-heart's desire is.
My own gifts and abilities, without Christ's enabling, are worthless.
And now I'm gonna go see my Jesus for a while.
Join me, will you? Right there at the computer.
Thursday, August 6
observations on the south, part II
a few more notes from a California girl who was dropped in a strange but wonderful land:
The airports were beautiful, but somehow the intersection of Starbucks, Brookstone, and a NASCAR gift shop, in the middle of the food court, struck me as odd. I'm either incredibly ignorant or I'm officially not a redneck.
The train one must take to move between concourses in Atlanta (which I deduced was Southern-speak for "terminal") is part cattle-car and part "Listen-sweetie-you'd-have-better-decide-just-where-you're-a-headed-cause-the-rest-of-us-here-have-somewhere-impoht'nt-to-be!" That thing hauled off so fast I nearly fell over! I thought things there moved at a slower pace...
On the plus side, two lovely Southern-mama-types (at least that's what Southern mamas are like in my imagination) offered me a bar to hold on to and the sweetest "You have a nice trip, now" that I've ever heard in my life.
There are plenty of rude people there. There just must be. Logic tells me it must be so. But it's the accent thing again - it's deceiving, I tell ya. Or they're passive-aggressive in a way I don't recognize? Either way, I'm sure I was duped.
If I could spend an entire weekend sipping sweet tea (which, incidentally, was not served at the hotel) on a porch with BooMama and Lysa Terkeurst, I'd be one happy woman. I'm tellin ya, those are some funny girls.
Would someone please tell me why, in this great state of California, we miss out on the sheer joy of being called "huh-ney"? I miss that, and I'll have to go back one day just to get me a big dose of Southern drawl. Cause I love me some drawl, oh yes I do.
Can you tell I fell head over heels? Though it did help a bit that I spent most of my time inside a hotel, sheltered from the humidity and the bugs. Perhaps my view is a bit rosey, but I loved it just the same.
The airports were beautiful, but somehow the intersection of Starbucks, Brookstone, and a NASCAR gift shop, in the middle of the food court, struck me as odd. I'm either incredibly ignorant or I'm officially not a redneck.
The train one must take to move between concourses in Atlanta (which I deduced was Southern-speak for "terminal") is part cattle-car and part "Listen-sweetie-you'd-have-better-decide-just-where-you're-a-headed-cause-the-rest-of-us-here-have-somewhere-impoht'nt-to-be!" That thing hauled off so fast I nearly fell over! I thought things there moved at a slower pace...
On the plus side, two lovely Southern-mama-types (at least that's what Southern mamas are like in my imagination) offered me a bar to hold on to and the sweetest "You have a nice trip, now" that I've ever heard in my life.
There are plenty of rude people there. There just must be. Logic tells me it must be so. But it's the accent thing again - it's deceiving, I tell ya. Or they're passive-aggressive in a way I don't recognize? Either way, I'm sure I was duped.
If I could spend an entire weekend sipping sweet tea (which, incidentally, was not served at the hotel) on a porch with BooMama and Lysa Terkeurst, I'd be one happy woman. I'm tellin ya, those are some funny girls.
Would someone please tell me why, in this great state of California, we miss out on the sheer joy of being called "huh-ney"? I miss that, and I'll have to go back one day just to get me a big dose of Southern drawl. Cause I love me some drawl, oh yes I do.
Can you tell I fell head over heels? Though it did help a bit that I spent most of my time inside a hotel, sheltered from the humidity and the bugs. Perhaps my view is a bit rosey, but I loved it just the same.
Wednesday, August 5
out on a limb here
a new look! and this time i didn't lose absolutely everything in my blog over the course of 3 frustrating hours, though it did take me a moment to figure out how to log in.
so... what d'ya think?
so... what d'ya think?
observations on the south, part I
Three days in Charlotte plus a layover in Atlanta led me to this:
Awfully nice people. Lovely, really. They'll kill you with kindness through that sweet drawl if you're not careful. And yet there is a relatively-constant presence of invasive cigarette smoke there. As these two opposite qualities don't seem to match up well, I am left to assume that the juxtaposition is some sort of homage to the founding tobacco plantation owners/farmers. Bless their sweet, misguided, 18th century hearts.
The airport in Charlotte actually has a screened-in (well, w/ glass) front porch with a view of the planes and, are you ready? Rocking chairs! Tons of them, all lined up. And wooden ones, at that. If I had slept more than two hours during my night of travel to that point, I'd have been tempted to trade in my coffee for a lemonade and sit a spell with a hand-held fan.
I either traveled 2000 miles or just up the road to LA - there was a "Terminal Getaway Spa" there. I could've had a facial right there in the airport if I'd wanted, sufficiently marked up in price of course.
Sitting outside in the South at the end of July brought Huck Finn & Tom Sawyer to life in a way that Tom Sawyer's Island at Disneyland never could. The humidity hangs so thick in the air I swore I caught some in my hand.
Somehow I had precious little need for my sunglasses. I did, however, have a strange hankering for a pretty hat.
and... not related specifically to the South but rather to my trip in general:
An unwise time to leave one's baby at home, for the first time ever, would be when one is spending 12 hours on 2 planes to go off gallivanting across the country - while pregnant with one's second baby (and therefore exhausted, emotional, and hormonal). After I was able to hold it together and wave goodbye cheerfully to a sobbing little girl yelling "mama" from her carseat, I ran to the nearest bathroom stall to hide my sobs for the next 10 minutes. Good times.
Awfully nice people. Lovely, really. They'll kill you with kindness through that sweet drawl if you're not careful. And yet there is a relatively-constant presence of invasive cigarette smoke there. As these two opposite qualities don't seem to match up well, I am left to assume that the juxtaposition is some sort of homage to the founding tobacco plantation owners/farmers. Bless their sweet, misguided, 18th century hearts.
The airport in Charlotte actually has a screened-in (well, w/ glass) front porch with a view of the planes and, are you ready? Rocking chairs! Tons of them, all lined up. And wooden ones, at that. If I had slept more than two hours during my night of travel to that point, I'd have been tempted to trade in my coffee for a lemonade and sit a spell with a hand-held fan.
I either traveled 2000 miles or just up the road to LA - there was a "Terminal Getaway Spa" there. I could've had a facial right there in the airport if I'd wanted, sufficiently marked up in price of course.
Sitting outside in the South at the end of July brought Huck Finn & Tom Sawyer to life in a way that Tom Sawyer's Island at Disneyland never could. The humidity hangs so thick in the air I swore I caught some in my hand.
Somehow I had precious little need for my sunglasses. I did, however, have a strange hankering for a pretty hat.
and... not related specifically to the South but rather to my trip in general:
An unwise time to leave one's baby at home, for the first time ever, would be when one is spending 12 hours on 2 planes to go off gallivanting across the country - while pregnant with one's second baby (and therefore exhausted, emotional, and hormonal). After I was able to hold it together and wave goodbye cheerfully to a sobbing little girl yelling "mama" from her carseat, I ran to the nearest bathroom stall to hide my sobs for the next 10 minutes. Good times.
Tuesday, August 4
uncommon sense
It would seem a natural thing for an airline to, oh, I don't know, pay attention to the ramifications of a delay in a passenger's flight before taking that passenger's luggage, placing it on the runaway train we call a luggage conveyor belt, and dooming said passenger to at least 24 hours of separation from said luggage.
It would seem. Oh well, at least I was able to take a shower last night, use deodorant today (nice thing, since it's HOT today), take off the clothes I'd been wearing through 2 really long days, and run a brush through my hair.
Not that I spent much time getting ready, after waiting around until midnight for the bag I checked in 36 hours earlier in Charlotte. But you know, I could now fix my hair and look presentable. In theory.
All things considered, though, I'd much rather that I was the one on the flight home to San Diego and that I was the one who saw my family Sunday night and that I was not the one rolling from conveyor belt to conveyor belt looking for a way home. Much better that, of the two of us, it was the bag which got lost in the shuffle. Or I'd be one mad mama.
And on a positive note, I got to practice all kinds of nice thoughts, letting go of bitterness, and letting God have control over the consequences I wanted to exact on the employees in Charlotte. So, really, if I had practice time with things like those, the experience of losing my bag wasn't all bad, right? Just a wee bit smelly...
It would seem. Oh well, at least I was able to take a shower last night, use deodorant today (nice thing, since it's HOT today), take off the clothes I'd been wearing through 2 really long days, and run a brush through my hair.
Not that I spent much time getting ready, after waiting around until midnight for the bag I checked in 36 hours earlier in Charlotte. But you know, I could now fix my hair and look presentable. In theory.
All things considered, though, I'd much rather that I was the one on the flight home to San Diego and that I was the one who saw my family Sunday night and that I was not the one rolling from conveyor belt to conveyor belt looking for a way home. Much better that, of the two of us, it was the bag which got lost in the shuffle. Or I'd be one mad mama.
And on a positive note, I got to practice all kinds of nice thoughts, letting go of bitterness, and letting God have control over the consequences I wanted to exact on the employees in Charlotte. So, really, if I had practice time with things like those, the experience of losing my bag wasn't all bad, right? Just a wee bit smelly...
Monday, August 3
a nineveh update
Well, I went to Nineveh, a.k.a. Charlotte, NC. And I found confirmation for what God is doing, tips on things I should be doing right now to help make it happen, and the best encouragement ever: worry more about kneeling at the foot of the cross and seeking hard after Jesus than about the details of making a ministry vision come together. All at the annual She Speaks Conference.
Just what the doctor ordered. More later this week, including two posts with observations on the South from a Cali girl (rocking chairs in odd places & a hankering for a wide-brimmed hat made the list).
Just what the doctor ordered. More later this week, including two posts with observations on the South from a Cali girl (rocking chairs in odd places & a hankering for a wide-brimmed hat made the list).
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