Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Speak up with what?

I'm BACK after 3 1/2 years!  When I read the last post I have posted on this blog I'm amazed at the words I chose.  When I wrote "Mom and Grandma" I had no idea that just 2 short weeks later my life as Mom and Grandma was going to take a different road from a one night choice.

I just came back from a "SPEAK UP with CONFIDENCE" seminar in Grand Rapids Michigan and it gave me the courage to start blogging on this personal blog again after all this time.  I'm so excited to put into practice everything I learned at SPEAK UP but I'm a little confused about the CONFIDENCE thing!  Is it speak up with Convenience?  Consonants? Continuance? Consequences?  I hope that I figured it out.  I'm so glad that we were SPARKED up with the excitement to share HIS story through OUR story!

So stay tuned if you want to hear HIS amazing story through MY story as wife, MOM, Nana, and Fill in Mom to several hurting boys.

I am so thankful for this woman, the leader of the seminar I just participated in.  She encouraged me as a "far away" mentor and "seasonal" mentor when she didn't even know she was helping me.
Me and Carol Kent!
A week before my life changing day, I signed up for a E-Women Conference out by my friend, Amy, whom lived in North Carolina.  I wanted to do something special for her.  Her birthday was coming up and she had just lost her 25 year old daughter through complications after a surgery on January 1st.  When I signed us up I asked her, "Have you ever heard of Carol Kent?"  She responded with, "No, I haven't but I've heard of all the other speakers!"  I didn't research Carol's testimony at the time, however, the day after my son's arrest someone told me I needed to read a book called "When I lay my Isaac Down" by Carol Kent.  I couldn't sleep that night so I got on the internet was reading every devotion, articles, or Bible verses I could find on Hope and Encouragement.  Then I remembered the book mentioned to me, so I looked it up.  Her picture and name sounded familiar so I pulled up my conference info and sure enough it was that lady I had never heard anything about before.  I started reading everything I could find about Carol, then I was trying to decide if I should buy her book or not that night online.  The thought came into my head do you really think you will have time or want to read her book at this time in your life?  So I didn't order it.  Did I ever tell you that Our God is a BIG GOD?  The next day while in the shower, I decided that I was going to tackle this day with out crying all day and TRUST that HE was going to carry me through this.  I walked out to my kitchen and from far away I could see a book with a bow wrapped around it and a card covering the whole top of the book.  But I knew that MY GOD showed up because I saw the color of the binder on the book.  Here came the tears, but different tears.  If this woman of God can continue on going through what she was going through in life then I could do this too.  She gave me confidence!

Three and a half years later I wrote on her facebook wall thanking her for encouraging me because I finally shared my son's story in front of 100 women at a Mother's Day talk.  She encouraged me to come to "SPEAK UP with CONFIDENCE" seminar and I'm so thankful I listened to God and went!  I'm also thankful that I asked my BEST FRIEND, Brenda, to go with.  We had a GREAT time with other women of God and God HIMSELF!  It was AMAZING!

Hebrews 3:1-6  "Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,”bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future.  But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory."

Climb that "thang!"

I wrote this post back in January of 2007  and I still have those pesky bugs and the enemy is still trying to rob me of my joy on a weekly ...