Well beloved what a weekend! While I am so glad I went to the Joyce Meyer's conference with some wonderful ladies I also have to tell you it was not all roses. As in any journey God takes us on their were highs and lows!
To start with I want to say I thoroughly enjoyed hearing Joyce speak. She is anointed to do what she has been called to. Her words are directly from God they are spoken in a way that is true to the woman God created her to be! When she talks, I so can hear my granny speaking to me again, and I was so blessed by that. It is an amazing gift to witness a woman being true to the woman she knows she is in God! While I did not enjoy the hard push for donations prior to each session. I appreciate the generous charities that she and her people are involved in, I really believe they are changing lives! I think her struggles have been so closely related to my own that her words were extremely applicable, and I am thankful to have had the opportunity to hear them.
I loved spending time with so many of the ladies we were with and enjoyed hearing their stories and getting to know them better. I have never laughed so hard as I did in the car with Vickie and Sherrie and Lori on the way up and back! I have a safe and hilarious soul sister in Terrie I loved her before, and knew she was beautiful inside and out, but getting to see how truly beautiful she is inside is amazing!! And what a joy to spend time with the rest of the ladies, I regret that I wasn't able to spend time with all of the ladies and that they missed out on the sharing and laughter we shared before the sessions. It's really too bad.
That being said, I've told you before of my struggle with depresion and anxiety. I cannot always explain what causes me to be overcome by it again, but man I did! We had gone to lunch at a small family style restraunt and all 14 of these ladies and myself sat together in a large booth. I could feel myself becoming anxious, but man I did not want to show weakness or bring attention to myself! You know because i'm that important and people think I'm perfect!(dripping with sarcasm) I then proceeded to have a full on panic attack and immediately began beating myself up for it. I am so stupid and what is wrong with me and now all these women I've just met will begin to form opinions of me because of this!!!!!
Well, it turns out very few people knew it had even happened. It made me feel foolish but it was something completely outside of my control. I don't think anyone would choose to feel this way. As far as stupid, kids I may not be a rocket scientist but I am far from stupid. And for the opinions of the other ladies these were good Christian women and though I doubt they formed any opinions of me, if they did that is on their conscience not mine!
So here is the deal I will not let this define the weekend for me and I will not hide it. Because Satan would love that! He loves for us to live in denial and wear a mask of shame. I have chosen to live a very transparent Christian walk, and in that choice have been praised and berated. However I have to follow God's instructions. It is that simple and he has called me to live this life of openess and as badly as I want lie and say it was all wonderful...Colossians 3: 9 says do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with it's practices. So I'm trying to do better and will continue to be transparent.
God bless and keep you, Ms. Jill
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