She Speaks

Weeks before She Speaks, word began to travel on our Facebook group about the Prayer Room. Seems there are quite a few repeat attenders (now I know why) and they started to share their stories from the Prayer Room.

Amidst the busy day of workshops and networking, the She Speaks team created a room to escape the chaos and talk with God. Or listen. Or both. They want the weekend to be a time for these 650 ladies to hear from God and sometimes a quiet respite is needed for that.

The room is dimmed, soft instrumental music playing, chairs, benches, pillows – a place to sit or kneel and find quiet your hearts.

And then there are the names.

At the back of the room, on four tables, are sheets of paper containing each of the names of God. Then on little slips of paper are the names of the 650 women in attendance. Someone on the P31 staff prayed over each of those names and then placed their name on one of those sheets of paper, listening for the whisper of God to direct the placement. To give that woman an measure of encouragement or knowledge or just “a word” as Beth Moore would say.

How cool is that?

As I wandered to the back of the quiet room, I started on the left. My name jumped out at me immediately, placed there on the sheet right in front of me.

YHWH (Yahweh)

I AM
The One Who Is
The Self-Existent One

After some time in the prayer room I had a chance to look up the scriptures mentioned (and a little context).

Exodus 3:14 says…

⁴ God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

Malachi 3:6 says… “I the LORD do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.”

What was interesting to me was that as part of my 5 minute talk on Saturday night I was talking about my struggle with depression. While this was not the specific angle I was talking about, the story of Moses and the Israelites wandering the desert was one that, in the midst of the depression, reminded me that God never leaves me, even in the dark and desolate times.

I got all goose bumpy when I read that and realized that. I’ve pulled down a bunch of study material on the name “Yahweh” and plan to dig into it this week.

You know how I go on and on about how awesome orphan care conferences are because you’re gathered with a bunch of people who love the same thing you do?

Well She Speaks was the exact same thing, except I got to be with 650 women who love to write, speak and minister to women. It was amazing!

We got to hear from some amazing speakers like Lysa TerKeurst, Renee Swope, Micca Campbell and Ann Voskamp (Yes, the Ann Voskamp that wrote “One Thousand Gifts”.) I’ll have to unpack those later when I have a chance to type up some of my notes.

But there were 11 beautiful, amazing women that conquered their fears and joined me in a speaker evaluation group. We each had to prepare a 3-minute talk that was “our story” and a 5-minute scriptural teaching talk.

Friday night we gathered in one of the hotel rooms and one-by-one we shared our stories. They were beautiful stories, heartbreaking stories, happy stories. We had women who had lost children, women who had gone through divorce, breast cancer survivors and one still undergoing treatment. Women overcoming abusive backgrounds and ministering to other women. Women dealing with the heartbreak of ministry betrayal. We had award-winning authors, bloggers, mom’s and wives.

After each talk we filled out an evaluation form (as did our “official evaluator” Melissa from P31) for the speaker. They were such an encouraging and helpful bunch of women.

What struck me as I sat in the large room where we had our keynotes and meals was that there are sooo many stories waiting to be told. And most of us have more than one story. More than one struggle we can share. More than one piece of encouragement we can pass on.

I came back changed, inspired and encouraged in lots of ways that will take some time to process, but I promise to do some of it here 🙂

She Speaks…God Speaks

The Women of She Speaks