I was almost afraid to write about She Speaks. There are so many of you who want to go, I’m afraid next year might be sold out before I can sign up again And yes, I do think I want to go again. I’m going to work on growing closer to God, and I know He’ll make it obvious to me whether I should be there or not. (The dates are July 31 – August 2, 2009 in case you want to mark it on your calendar!) If any P31 women are reading this, any chance of allowing more people to come next year? Scary thought — I know

I learned a lot after She Speaks ended. The fashion trip with Shari on Monday was amazing. That stuff will come in a separate post — I promise. I have been working on pulling all my old clothes out of the closet, seeing that most of them are not in my style (coloring or style), and packing them up for Good Will.

Duck came to meet me at the conference hotel Sunday afternoon as the conference was ending. We went out to eat lunch and I have to tell you, I missed my man. It was so good just to feel rested in his arms. He already knows I’m spacey sometimes. He already knows my faults, but he loves me anyway. I didn’t have to worry about anything around him. So it was just so good to see him.

In the busyness of life at home, we have a tendency to not talk — well, not talk about dreams, long-term goals, or deeper meaning stuff. Since we were staying the night in Concord in preparation for The Great Shopping Trip, we had the opportunity to soak in a whirlpool tub and talk. I don’t know why a whirlpool tub makes it better. Maybe it’s the bubbles that get us all relaxed and comfortable.

Duck is really a great listener. He listened to me ramble on about the conference, and I began to process much of what I had been through that weekend — and even before that weekend. Doodle had been invited to a birthday party a few weeks before. I went to “check in” on her at Chuck E. Cheese, but really I went to talk to the mom. Amanda is a beautiful, funny, grounded Christian woman. I love talking to her about anything and everything. I wish at times, that we were closer friends but I know that’s going to be difficult now — her kids are all going to a different school than Doodle.

Amanda and I were talking about the problem with parenting today. My standard response is that children need to be beat more (don’t get in an uproar — by beat, I just mean disciplined and yes, spanked). She made the point that we have gotten lazy in our parenting. We tell Jr. to stop doing that or I’m going to get up and come over there — except we never get up. Her points really hit home with me because they described me. I have been lazy with Doodle this past year. I haven’t made her pick up her stuff. I haven’t made her listen to me — or rather I haven’t made her suffer the consequences of not listening to me.

All of these things came out during our deep discussion. I told Duck I have been lazy for too long in not only parenting Doodle, but in my duties of keeping up the house as well. I asked him to forgive me, and although he didn’t think I was being all that lazy, he forgave me.

We talked about speaking in front of people — something that he has no problems doing. He loves to sing and sings well — that’s his talent. We talked about writing and some things he said really surprised me. He loves to read my blog because he gets to see a different side of me — well, not really a different side of me, but he gets to see inside my head more. He gets to see more of me than he normally would during a typical day.

One thing he said really hit home. I’ve been trying too hard to write for other people. He said when I write for myself, and don’t worry what others will think, I write a lot better. I have been worried too much about other people — what you want to read as opposed to what I want to tell you.

I took that to heart. This past week, all these updates on She Speaks have been totally for me. I want to remember. I’ve written what I wanted to write — what I’ve felt is the truth. I seriously had a battle going on as to whether or not I want to say that She Speaks wasn’t “all that and a bag of chips” for me. I mean, Lysa herself might read it! But it was the truth and not at all because of anything the P31 ladies did — it’s because I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t have my quiet time like I know I should. It’s not a bad reflection on them. It’s a bad reflection on me.

So when you are writing on your blog, or maybe you’re just writing your story, remember to write for you and God. Don’t try to sound like BooMama, BigMama or even Lysa. Because you are unique, special, hand-picked by God to be you. No one else can write like you, think like you or be you. Here’s to being me {raising Coke can high in the air for a toast} and you being you!

As I’ve had more time this week to process things, I realized I learned quite a bit over the weekend at She Speaks. I hope you are not getting tired of hearing about it — and don’t get jealous because you weren’t there (I’ve done that for many years), but start praying now about whether God would have you be there next year (July 31 – Aug 2, 2009).

In my first post this week, I shared what I got out of the Bloggers’ Reception. The first general session Friday night was Lysa’s “Developing the Character to Match Calling.” This is when I learned Lysa was in my head. Actually, I learned that everyone, even Lysa, feels the same at some time or another — afraid of putting your writing (or speaking) out there, afraid of rejection, doubting the call. I knew that the ladies this weekend would be sharing their personal stories, but I didn’t realize they would be giving such sound Biblical teaching. There was definitely no fluff at this conference — all God. Lysa taught on Samuel going to Jesse’s house to annoint the next king of Israel. The best quote — “David was overlooked by everyone else but handpicked by God.” Overlooked is really how I felt all weekend, but I realize now it doesn’t matter. I was handpicked by God to be me. Another great lesson from this session? That after David was annointed king, he didn’t suddenly move to the palace. He went back to the fields to tend sheep.

The next session I attended was “Blogging: What Works and What Doesn’t.” For information on each of their parts of this session, you can visit Shannon, Sophie and Melanie. To tell you the truth, I didn’t learn much I didn’t already know about blogging. That wasn’t why I went (I think). I went to check these ladies out to see how they are in person vs just reading their blogs. I learned they are real people — the same as on their blogs.

Saturday morning, bright and early, brought along the next general session — Karen Ehman’s “Embracing Your Little and Your Lot.” I loved it when she said “comparisons stink.” Because they do. I had gotten caught up in looking at other women at this conference and seeing how put together they are and feeling rather raggedy myself (thanks to Shari who fixed that Monday though!). She made some great points that all helped me realize I had lost my focus on God. I need to be looking up instead of around.

• The difference is Christ in me … not me in a different set of circumstances.
• Satan’s MO (mode of operation) is to convince me the one thing I don’t have is the one thing I need.
• Start speaking kindly to your family.

That last one caught me off-guard, but it’s so true. She basically said how can you get up in front of people and speak God’s Word if you aren’t speaking very kindly to the people you live with and love.

“The Pathway to Publication” by Susanne Scheppmann was good. This reinforced in me that I not only need to be writing, but I should be submitting too. I’ll never be published if I don’t submit anything. I’m not looking to publish any books — at least not yet, but if I can write some magazine articles that help others, that would be totally awesome.

“Magazine Writing 101: Honing Your Writing Skills” by Glynnis Whitwer was probably one of the most informative of the sessions. Everyone else gave maybe 2 pages of notes — Glynnis gave us 7 pages! After the last session when I was thinking writing articles wouldn’t be so bad, Glynnis gave me the great information to help me begin those articles. Glynnis or Lysa if y’all are reading this, it would be absolutely awesome to have something similar to this session for Blog Writing next year. Of course I’m being full of myself thinking y’all are reading this, but ya never know until you throw it out there! This session has already changed the way I think about writing here, and I hope it’s made my writing here more enjoyable. I know I still deseperately need help on punctuation and stuff like that, but I’m trying not to be too hard on my blog writing skills.

“How to Write a Book” by Lysa TerKeurst gave some great information in pineapple bite-sized pieces She kind of lost me at the part where she was talking about partnerships. She said to get your friends and family on board from the start and that literally threw me for a loop. I’m not sure I’d want to tell anyone that I was trying to write a book (if I was, which I’m not, at least not yet). So there! But Lysa gave awesome information on how to break it down and set small goals for yourself. Thinking about writing a whole, big book can be quite overwhelming. She made the process seem more doable to me.

“Bringing Passion to Your Platform” by Marybeth Whalen — Marybeth, I think, was a little nervous presenting this information to a little bit of everybody. She had writers, speakers, bloggers, teens, mothers, grandmothers, and women’s ministry leaders. I’m sure I missed a group, but we were all there. She did a wonderful job fighting off the coughing attack from satan. I realized through this session, my passion is for women just like the ones who attended this conference. My knowledge is in blogging and other internet related technologies and I want to help women like that learn to use the internet for Jesus.

Coming out of the “How to Write a Book” session, I got to meet Shari. She asked if we (Jo-Lynne, Valerie and I) were coming to her session “What Not to Wear” and we told her we didn’t have tickets to that one. We were going to the Blogging Q&A held at the same time. Both sessions were packed beyond capacity and we all had tickets to the Blogging session. Shari shared with us that she had some brave ladies who were going to dress up and demonstrate what not to wear. The more I thought about it and the more we talked, I realized that Shari’s session is something you had to be there to see. I had planned on getting the recording later (audio only — no video), and realized that just wasn’t going to do. Shari ran into Valerie a little later and had given her 3 tickets to her session so we then had a choice to make.

Jo-Lynne was really torn — me, not so much. I know nothing about fashion and even though I was going to be getting my own personal time with Shari on Monday, I thought I’d still learn some things in her session. I had convinced Jo-Lynne to go (or so I thought). On her way to tell me she’d decided to go to the Blogging session, she threw up a prayer. Right at that moment, Shari walked out of a room into Jo-Lynne and asked her if she got her ticket. So I think we’ve both ordered the audio from the Blogging session LeAnn or Lysa (again, just throwing this out there into internet lands) please don’t schedule sessions like this at the same time next year Bloggers need to know how to dress too!

“What Not to Wear” by Shari Braendel — This session was a hoot and I’m so glad I didn’t miss it! Shari has an amazing personality. She loves to get the audience involved and there were a lot of good sports as she pulled them up and told them why they were a “not” and how they could easily be a “do.” If I had seriously known in time that I was going to be in this session, I so totally would’ve been decked out in my Harley gear. She actually pulled me up in front with another “Clear” (she doesn’t do coloring like winter, summer, etc.). I was a little embarassed because I was pretty sure I was the “not” but all was well. I had to laugh when she told the whole room that I was her “Harley girl” — the whole room started to cheer. The other lady had on a bright blue shirt that was more appropriate for our coloring than the brown dress I had on. Shari just said she’d fix me Monday and sent me back to my seat. Yes, she fixed me and yes, I’ll post pictures — but it’s probably going to be next week

After Shari’s session ended, we sprinted around the corner to the Blogging Q&A hoping to catch the last bit of it, but we were really right at the end. We did, however, get to hang out in the lobby with Shannon, Melanie, Sophie and a few other bloggers. It was nice and relaxing to sit there — especially after the shop opened back up and I could get a Coke and chocolate! Instead of staying to eat fish (I think that’s what they said we were having), we decided to load up the cars and go to the mall which was less than a mile from the hotel. There were 13 of us sitting in the food court, but I was really spacing out. It was so loud and so busy — and I had heard so much information that day, my brain was fried.

One of the sessions I had been looking forward to going before I signed up was Renee‘s “Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt” — the general session for Saturday night. After we ate though, shoes were calling to the majority of our group and no one seemed to want to get back. I was ok with it at the time, but I think hearing all the wonderful stories from that session, well, I regret not going back for it. No one’s fault but my own for sure. I did order the recording of it, but it’ll be 4-6 weeks before they are ready.

The final general session Sunday morning was “What Have They Got That I Haven’t Got?” by Micca Campbell. I absolutely loved this session too. She shared some great, real life stories that helped me totally relate to her. Did you know we all probably feel like we are the worst mothers in the world at one time or another? She let us know that no one else has got anything that we haven’t got. Because if we all have Jesus, then we can do anything through His power. All of the ladies, all weekend, were like that — it’s not me, it’s Jesus in me. It was really inspiring!

Believe it or not, this is not the end of what I learned at She Speaks. There’s more to come. I sincerely hope you are not tired of reading it yet — and if you are, that’s ok. Just check back next week and I might be finished talking about it all by then