Women of Faith Conference

Nothing can separate us from God… (Sheila Walsh)

Happy people are givers, connected, and have goals that both challenge them and leverage their abilities… (Henry Cloud)

Naked and Unashamed with our community of monkeys…  (Henry Cloud)

Peace is not the absence of trouble but the presence of Christ… (Sheila Walsh)

Live Now, Love Now, Give Now, Enjoy Now…. (Luci Swindoll)

By enjoying the world, we improve the world! People want to be where the fun is… (Luci Swindoll)

As I was trying to come up with words to describe my weekend at the Women of Faith conference in Indianapolis, I decided to head back to my quickly jotted notes from the sessions. These quotes above are only a brief synopsis of the weekend, but capture my main takeaways. The women and man (Henry Cloud) had oodles of amazing words of wisdom to share over the course of the two day session. In addition to the amazing speakers, Natalie Grant and Mary Mary both put on wonderful concerts.

I went into the weekend with very little knowledge of the list of speakers when I received the two free tickets to the conference. I knew Henry Cloud as the author of Boundaries, which my college roomie sweared by but I had never read, Sheila Walsh was once on the 700 Club, but that was when I was 6 and under, and Luci Swindoll had a name which was familiar to me. Following their amazing sessions, I feel like I know these people in a very personal and intimate way. They all shared their hearts and the things that God had taught them over the years. Not an easy task in a stadium of 10,000 women and a spattering of men, they must have been the bus drivers :) !

While all of the speakers I mentioned were awesome, my favorite was Angie Smith. I had heard Angie’s story before the conference, but seeing her on stage sharing the very personal details of losing her daughter after only 2 and half hours was very inspiring. I learned a lot from her about depending on the Lord, our Savior, in the good and even more importantly in the very hard times. Angie was full of wit and her smile warms my heart. It is her realness and ordinary-ness that draws me to her, and I thank her for sharing. I highly recommend checking out her blog at http://angiesmithonline.com/

The weekend was great and I would definitely go back again. So family, friends, random strangers who have stumbled upon my online musings, save the date and come with me to the Women of Faith conference in 2012. The session in Indy is August 24-25th!