ENCOURAGED IN HEART

“A Tear’s Journey” – that’s pretty much the title of my weekend.

I’m writing to you from the comforts of my hotel room, in a land that’s not far from my residence. A promised land of sorts; a land that flowing with coffee and billowy pillows…they have milk and honey here too.

Oh yeah, and no makeup. I figured, after yesterday, what’s the point? More about that a little later…

I’m on my annual get away weekend… (Can I get a whoop-whoop?)

I attended the Priscilla Shirer’s “Going BEYOND” conference at McLean Bible Church with three precious sisters from my hood and church, Joann, Lynn and Leslie. Jo left her hairnet at home, Lynn got out of her sexy minivan and into her hubby’s sedan to taxi drive us and Leslie was able to fit it the conference before a black belt ceremony and hosting 14 people in her home!

Women rock!

Speakin’ of rockin’ women, Priscilla Shirer was a power-packed-faith-filled-no-non-sense kinda gal. Her brother, Anthony Evans led worship – don’t even get me started – when 2,300 women get together to praise God! All I can say is, what was formerly used to groove in clubs is now used to praise the Lord!

The conference started Friday night and ended at lunch time Saturday. While Priscilla’s a gifted teacher and Anothy a gifted singer, my favorite part of the conference was Saturday morning before the “event” began – the prayer time. Priscilla asked for women that have seen God move in their finances, to step into the aisle, to testify to God’s faithfulness. She then asked women that needed a financial break through, stand up out of their seats. She asked the “aisle women” go to find a “seats woman”, and pray. And so this went, for infertility, addiction, marriages, singleness, family, health…little huddles of women throughout the enormous room, praying, believing, crying. As powerful prayers went up, cleansing tears came down.

Adios makeup, thanks for your efforts. I won’t be needing your services today.

I was both an “aisle” and “seat” woman. Tears came when I prayed for, because God reminded me the pain when I was in my sisters’ shoes. Tears came when I was prayed for, because Gods love was poured out onto me. And, whether in or through the journey, a tear’s journey has purpose…which leads me to my favorite Priscilla statement of the weekend, “All things aren’t good but all things work together for the good.”

I’ll be back into the real world in just about four hours from now. I’m grateful for this precious time away, the reality of a purpose driven tear, all because I do want to go beyond what and where I am today.

Today I continued to count…but not just my Weight Watchers points. But while I’m mentioning it, I have learned that coffee, my beloved coffee (black), is ZERO points! And for when my sweet tooth strikes, one Rice Krispy treat is one point!

Ah Lord, this is just further evidence of your sweet love for me!

While my health goals are important, I counted something much more valuable today.

Today we sorted food that will be shipped out to Haiti. I believe the final count from the shift before and our shift was 52,000 meals sorted! If there ever was a time to use the word, “WOWZERS!” this would be it!

Cal and I worked with our friends Laura and Nate on our right,

and Joann on our left. The gal knows how to make a hairnet look G-O-O-D!

We were on the grams counting station, to make sure each bag weighed the proper amount, before the bags were sealed and boxed up.

My favorite memory of today was watching Cal and his buddy, Nate, work so hard as “runners” – carrying the filled bags of rice, soy and seasoning from the mixing station to the grams counting station. With smiles and hairnets…ahhhh, the hairnets.

As if the expression on Cal’s face isn’t telling enough…if he mentioned the hairnets, and his dislike of the hairnets once, the boy mentioned them a half dozen times. Once home, Cal quickly reminded me that, “I don’t like those things on my head!”

So I’ve heard Cal…

Serving the Lord is good. Serving the Lord with special girlfriends is great! Serving the Lord with special girlfriends and our five year old children…AWESOME!

So, does anyone else out there have an offspring that just likes to, how do I say it…paint outside the lines, or thinks that backwards is forwards??!? And, you’re not really sure if what they’re doing is because they do actually know better, but they’d smoothly prefer to see their parent compete in another round spazznastics?

For months and months, we keep telling Cal aka: “Pockets” that, “the tags in the back”, or recently, that “the pants with the sewed up fly is like a zipper…it goes in the front”.

His response of, “Okay, okay…” seemed about as solid as an ice cube in a cup of hot cocoa.

Then, after we were out playing in the snow, we walked down to dine at the local Chinese restaurant when Cal removed his jacket.

If wedgie-land doesn’t bother him, then I’m going to try to not let it bug me!