Extraordinary Faith - Women of Faith Conference 2005 (Friday PM)

Four women from church and myself made the trek to St. Louis for the Women of Faith "Extraordinary Faith" Conference on Friday and returned late Saturday night. This was my fourth conference in a row, because after the first one, I just can't not go to them!

As we conversed at dinner last evening, I asked each of the women what part of the conference was most meaningful to them and why. Women of Faith conferences are so neat because we hear from all six women of the wof speaker team, and because they all have varying backgrounds and experiences to share, all women who attend will be able to be touched by the words, and the encouragement, from at least one of the speakers. Another thing I noted in the conversation we had about our most meaningful parts of the conference, was that as soon as someone mentioned a part that touched them, it was so easy to agree "yeahhh, that' was goooood too!" I will share about the experience I had in St. Louis, but my perspective could be totally opposite of someone else's, and in fact, it probably is. I love those wild women of faith!

The five of us took two cars to St. Louis, and I always enjoy these opportunities to spend hours with people on the drive to a conference because you get to "bond" with people that way. It's inevitable that you will have conversation and get to know these people simply by sharing and learning about one another. It was no different this trip and God is so good, oh, that he put these special people in my life!

We arrived hungry in St. Louis at around 5:00 and had just enough time to check into the hotel and get going into the city for the start of the conference Friday night. We hoped to stop for a quick bite to eat, and we did eat at TGIF's, then headed to the Saavis Center. We missed the praise and worship session that started the conference, but we did arrive in time for the meat of the night's festivities. Dramatist Nicole Johnson shared a message in a creative way about being a "pajama princess" and comparing how as little girls we are our daddy's princess's, and how our perception of God is sometimes determined by our relationship with our daddies. Her sketch destroys the myth that God is anything like our earthy dads, to the point that to our heavenly father we are his daughter, we are a princess. He will NEVER leave us. He loves us unconditionally! That is a FACT we can know and be encouraged about! Her gift to the women in attendance at the conference was a tiara. Wear it an know Whose you are!

Nichole Nordeman took the stage and performed for us. She is one gifted songwriter and we heard songs from her Dove Award winning album "Woven and Spun". "Legacy" is a favorite of mine and I sure was glad to hear that live. What a great storyteller as well. Nordeman, alone at her piano, has such a stage presence and a command of the audience, that when she speaks, she has our attention. It is hard not to anticipate what she will share next, and then to discover how vulnerable she is, and how Brave she can be, all at the same time...whoa. It was such an honest and real performance of her music, that documents her life. She gives the listener a glimpse of her triumphs and also her spiritual struggles. The same struggles all believers face at times.

After Nordeman, it was time for one of my conference favorites, Patsy Clairmont! Woohooo! That woman is such a spitfire and has a wit like you wouldn't believe. She usually keeps everyone in stitches throughout her speech, yet wraps it all up into an impacting spiritual truth. She shared with us a couple of stories that involved some risky behavior on her part, one was riding a bike and another was cross-country skiing. The story of the bike involved a memory on how exciting it was to receive a brand new bicycle as a gift on her birthday as a youngster. She was so excited to ride and it was so freeing and that for a kid, riding a bike is the "closest you can get to flying". Later on in her adult life, when her youngest son was a teenager and still at home, she got another bike. Against her husbands warnings to "be careful" and "slow down", she mounted the bicycle for a relaxing ride with her son. She began to head down the hill that her home was on. It was so freeing and the houses were going by like a "kaleidescope", a rush of color, and then she said "I saw my house" and then she "started to panic". She knew that just beyond her house was an obstacle that she was going too fast to avoid. So, she hit the brakes. Nothing happened when her feet applied them, because this was not like the bicycle she had as a youngster, this bike had hand brakes. Again, not heeding her husband's instructions about how to safely apply hand brakes, she forcibly squeezed the right brake and managed to make herself actually fly! She went airborne and slide across the concrete of the walk, until she was a pile of flesh that came to rest only upon impact at the doorstep. Her son came running and and asked "are you okay?" and all she could say were three words..."did anybody see?". LOL Patsy shared the story of David and Goliath in a very unusual way and made the point about what comes after someone becomes prideful. We all know what happened to Goliath! She also encouraged us with her words about David's faith in the Lord, his extraordinary faith. It is the Lord's battle! He has already declared victory! Trust God!

Patsy shared about a time her husband warned her about the difficulty in cross country skiing. She told us he said "if you don't come back, I'm not going to come for you until spring!" When Patsy shared about her cross-country skiing incident, well, just imagine taking on that hill for the first time and going down a bit too fast. Oh, and the lake at the bottom? But, that's not much of a problem because of the line of trees before the lake! Now imagine cruising down that hill on skis that don't have hand brakes! Patsy was so funny in that skiing stance while she imitated a panic in depressing the non-existent hand brakes! LOL Her gift to us was a bicycle, and she was quick to point out it had coaster brakes! The bicycle was to remind us that when we get too puffed up and take things into our own hands, when we try to take control over the entire situation, when we try to fight the battle on our own, we will most likely fall at some point. Pride always comes before a fall.

Avalon took the stage to perform their hit "Everything to Me" on Friday night as somewhat of a "teaser" for their performance scheduled for Saturday. I was looking forward to hearing this group live, and especially looking to hearing "Testify" and "Adonai" live. Good stuff!

That was it for Friday night. When we went to leave, we quickly discovered that one of our party was deathly afraid of heights. Why does this matter, well, it matters because we were seated in the nosebleed section of the arena! I mean nosebleed! Gwen had us all go down before her so she wouldn't feel the pressure of having to move along because people were behind her, and then she slowly made her way down while maintaining a death grip on the hand rails. She was obviously terrified, so we vowed that we would attempt to find lower seating the following day. We noticed that there were a few open spots in the arena so we didn't think it would be a problem. I had no idea how afraid of heights Gwen was, but I can see how terrifying it would be for someone with that issue. The picture can not capture the feeling of how high we were! That illuminated spot in the center is the stage! People looked like ants!