Have you ever had times in your life where you were humbled by how God has directed your steps? How He brought you along a path you didn’t even know you were on? This is a brief synopsis of how He brought me to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania today.
January 2011: Joined #hellomornings Maximize your Mornings Challenge with InspiredtoAction.com on Twitter
April 2011: Spoke to my MOPS group about my experience with pride/humility and mothering.
May 2011: Felt the Lord leading me to start a new blog with the focus on keeping Him center of our lives as moms.
June 2011: Started www.GodCenteredMom.com as a creative outlet and a response to His calling.
July 2011: Friendships on Twitter through #hellomornings continued to develop. I notice several of them had blogs & keep mentioning a conference they were going to in October for Christian Women Bloggers, called “The Relevant Conference”.
Here is the conference mission statement:
The Relevant conference exists to offer a gathering place for kindred spirits to connect, learn, grow, and be refreshed so they can persevere in being a people who bring hope to the world through the social media medium. Our goal is to go beyond the surface into intentional blogging and real life living, all to the glory of God. Relevant is a one-of-a-kind conference that seeks to engage women by teaching blogging techniques and social media skill while also urging and encouraging women to live fully integrated lives with their faith and family.
After I learned more about it, I wanted to go. I soon discovered that there was only room for 200 people at the conference and a waitlist of 200 women existed. I prayed that if I was meant to be there God would make a way.
August 2011:
August 3rd-Get a message from my twitter friend @mommakristi that a #relevant ticket was available and they wanted to sell it to me.
I was amazed at how quickly God made His plan evident. Unfortunately, I found out someone else was purchasing the ticket. I was disappointed but knew that I only wanted His will.
August 13th-Tweet “praying for His will. Still hope that I will get a #relevant11 tic but also trusting that He knows best.”
Later that day see a tweet that the roommates of a blogger named Lindsey are no longer able to attend and are selling their tickets. I send her a message to let her know I’m interested.
August 14th-get an email from @laurensykes asking if I would be interested in buying her ticket!!!
The reason Lauren was unable to attend is that she had to move to the west coast for a job & wanted to use her money & time to visit her parents.
It’s in the details that God shows He sees and He cares…do you know what kind of job Lauren was starting? She was going to do her Speech-Language Pathology internship! We have the same profession!
Through this new friendship, I was able encourage her in her new career and give her confidence that God would provide what she needs in her new home away from home.
Love how God thinks of even the little details to bless us.
August 27th: Attend a local Christian blogging conference and meet “in real life” a sweet girl Stefanie Brown from Uplifting Words. She and I had previously gotten to know each other on twitter because she was looking for a Relevant ticket.
September 2011:
Stefanie announces on Twitter that she bought a Relevant ticket. She and I make plans to have lunch. We have a wonderful time and spend 2 hours chatting about God’s goodness.
I ask my current roommate, Lindsey, if she would be interested in having Stefanie as our 3rd roommate (more the merrier, right?).
October 2011:
Then we find out that Lindsey is no longer able to attend Relevant and sold her ticket to Cherie of Heart and Soul Reflections. We welcomed Cherie to our room with open arms!
I feel so blessed because Cherie attended Relevant last year and knows several of the bloggers that will be attending. I am planning on her helping Stefanie and I navigate through this new experience.
Today I will meet Cherie for the first time. The three of us, who 2 months ago were not going to Relevant, will be ready to absorb what God has to teach us there.
He had a reason for making a path for us to attend. He decided that we would stay in the same hotel room. He chose the speakers for this weekend. I.CANNOT. WAIT!
Two Things:
1) I will be tweeting great quotes from the conference. If you want to follow along, now would be a good time to get a twitter account and follow me: @hmacmomma. And to follow the #relevant11 stream.
2) They will be live streaming the keynote speakers if you would like to hear them. Here is the link: http://bit.ly/n9qUGR
Thursday night (6 central/7 eastern)-Tsh Oxenreider of Simple Mom
Friday night (6 central/7 eastern)-Joy Forney of GraceFullMama
Saturday night (5 central/6 eastern)-Ann Voskamp of A Holy Experience
Will you join me in prayer that God would speak to these 200 women attending? That He would be glorified. That a multitude would know Him more as we share what we’ve learned through social media and our blogs. That our families we are leaving behind would be kept safe. Thank you!
What a tremendously amazing journey! Praying for all attending relevant, and hoping to be there myself next year!
You know I’m praying friend!!! I’d love to do lunch or dinner or dessert when you get back so I can hear all the amazing things you learned!
so excited for you and looking so forward to see how the works over the next few days! looking forward to a full report! xoxo