Living the Faith Women's Conference (Day 1)

My sister in law, Tabitha, and myself bought tickets to go to the Living the Faith Women's Conference this year.  Lysa TerKeurst is the guest speaker and Laura Story is providing worship.  I'd never been to one of these conferences before so I had no clue what to expect.  I saw lots of familiar faces from our church sprinkled throughout the @ 2,000 women there. 

Laura was up first.  She is from the south and has a cute accent and is down right hilarious.  We sang some songs together, then she sang a couple to us.  One of them is a popular song that I hear on KLOVE all the time called Blessings.  It's a pretty song but she actually has a really powerful testimony behind the lyrics.  She and her husband have been married 7 years, but after 1 year of marriage he was having some health problems.  After about a year of being in and out of the doctor, they found out he had a brain tumor.  They did a surgery to remove the tumor and he lost a lot of memory and some vision.  He is disabled because of the vision problems.  She was joking about how she had her whole life planned out and was just waiting for God to sign off on these plans, and instead He took their life in a whole new direction. 

Next up was Lysa.  I am reading her book "Am I Messing up My Kids".  One of the chapters in the book talks about how she had a little baby sister, named Haley, who died when Lysa was in college.  I can't remember if I read in her book, or in an email, that her father wasn't around when she was growing up.  So, I knew she had some traumatic things happen in her life.  She went on tonight to talk about how she as sexually abused and threatened several times one summer when her mom was working 3 jobs to support her and her sister.  I wasn't expecting that, but then I really wasn't expecting her to tell us she found out she was pregnant when she was in college, shortly after Haley died, and decided to have an abortion.  Then she started talking about the word Messiah.  She loved how the first 4 letters spelled "Mess" and how God could use this "Mess" from her life, and give her a MESSage to share with others about how great God is.  She had an "annoying bible friend" that randomly sent her a card in the mail on the day that her baby would have been due.  This friend had no idea she had an abortion nor did she know all the horrible things that happened to Lysa when she was growing up.  On the front of the card was this verse from Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  That day Lysa got on her knees, lifted her hands, and prayed the best she knew how. 

I'm hoping tomorrow she goes in to more detail from the time period she got the card with Jeremiah 29:11 verse to how she got where she is today.  She did tell a neat story about giving her bible away to a man next to her on an airplane.  She shared with him her testimony and after getting off the plane, they swapped business cards.  Shortly after their meeting, he gave his life to the Lord.  He also started attending a church and the first weekend he attended he was handed a bulletin and Lysa's picture was in it because she was getting ready to speak there!  That's a God thing! 

I did get to meet her tonight and get my book signed.  She is so beautiful!  I told her she was, "So much prettier in person" and I hope that wasn't offensive.  I didn't want her to think I meant she took bad pictures or something like that!  Leave it to me to fumble my words.  Here's to looking forward to tomorrow :)

Let's just say, I didn't dress for a picture tonight, but there were 2 people in line so I jumped on the opportunity to meet her while I could!