Infinite Grace – Women Of Faith 2008

Posted November 4th, 2008 by Women of Faith

This year’s Conference was amazing! Wow, I am still flying high from the incredible experience we had! This year was awesome!I was blessed beyond belief to have my mom, twin sister, wonderful sister-in-law, and my other sister Mandy join us…(at the last minute!) It just so happened that we were in touch ( been a really long time!!!) the day before, she said she was free to come if there was a ticket, I looked in our offering box (we keep for things like these) and there was exactly enough money for us to purchase her a ticket! So she ended up joining us and having the time of her life! Oh, man, it just felt good!
There was a fair balance of hysterical laughing (Anita Renfroe’s “The Mom Song”! – have you guys heard that? You have to You-Tube it!!!), brilliant skits depicting the lives of real women/moms and relevant issues that we face, Women speakers that just blew me away with their words, testimonies, and exhortations, incredible worship, intimate to downright making you get out of your seat and start dancing, and so much more.
Each speaker spoke on a different topic. Each of them had such a wealth of experiences, mostly heartbreaking ones that truly gave them the credentials to be up on the podium. Divorce, A husband dying ( and earlier in life her baby dying as well), overcoming paralyzing fear, and even someone having committed adultery and the journey back to God’s wholeness and redemption.
Another thing that stood out was the a team of youth that did choreographed dance while Nicole C. Mullen sang. I’ll post a picture. One song was just a beautiful picture of a woman trying to break free from all the garbage in her life. The girls wore T-shirts with words like fear, shame, regret, abandonment on their backs and were literally taking the form of this garbage and physically taking this woman captive, not allowing her to break free from them. Then in the middle of the song as the woman began rising up and gaining strength and pushing them out of the way, they came and draped her in a beautiful white gown as she began dancing free. The girls became glorious angels changing into white as well and dancing beautifully with white scarves around the stage to show unity, and freedom! Wow. I was so moved! It just was a beautiful picture of a passion I possess for my own life, my mom, my sisters, and all women in my life.

Afterwards, we all talked about how it impacted us personally and just soaked up every thing we could. It was so, so fun and so, so worth every cent!

Some of you know the absolute miracle this is that my sister Mandy came to this event. I do not share alot about this subject so most of you don’t. My sister is a beautiful person with a pure heart that truly loves others. She’s had alot of hardships in her life. Had unspeakable losses which have shaped her undoubtedly. But she’s BACK.

I cannot describe the feeling that I had that we were all together for this conference this year.

Like an extravagant present wrapped in a beautiful package someone just handed to me and said “open it. It’s yours!”.

We are women that have all faced some huge stuff in our lives. Some that by their sheer impact could have killed us.

But sitting in that Rose Garden together one moment during a powerful song about the legacy of a mother, as we all looked at each other with tears were streaming down our faces silently acknowledging the profoundness of this moment, time stopped for me.

I saw each of us as we were. Mother and daughters. Struggling through life. Each of us with a story. Some in a season of pain and some in a season of joy. And one of us returning after what had been a long, long journey.

But we were here.

Together.

And we weren’t gonna stop.

We’ll never stop!

Mom, Mandy, Andrea, Amber, me

http://theriestererfam5.blogspot.com/2008/10/infinite-grace-women-of-faith-2008.html