Women Of Faith Update 1 Also Why Twitter Rules

Last weekend, I attended the Women of Faith conference in Billings, MT. It was a 9 hour drive in a minivan, with 6 ladies from town. It blew me away. God blew me away. It was the best weekend I've had in... honestly, in a really, really long time. I spent the weekend learning, remembering, worshipping, making new friends, laughing, crying, and tweeting :) This has to be the first of several posts about the weekend because there is just so much I want to share! And blogging is a good way for me to process big events that occur both in my life and in my heart. So to kick it off, here are a few highlights from the weekend:

* Connecting w/women from my town was amazing. There were 6 of us who drove 9+ hours to get to Billings. There was one woman in each decade from 20 to 70. I had met 3 of them before, but didn't know them well. Over the weekend, we laughed and giggled until our stomachs hurt, we cried and shared Kleenex, we walked miles to get food and go to Target, we drank coffee and ate junk food, we stayed up waaay too late and shared secrets, and we bonded as sisters redeemed in Christ. On the way home, we couldn't stop yakking about how we could bring back all we'd learned to our church, and the ideas flowed! It was so life-giving and fun!

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* I saw Sheila Walsh on the street and just couldn't say anything as we passed each other! I think I was just caught off-guard. I mean, Sheila Walsh! So I tweeted her - "I just passed you on the street! And now am kicking myself for not saying hi". Lo & behold, she wrote back - "No way! Wish you would've!" That exchange was cool enough in itself! But then, I caught her in the arena and told her I was the girl who tweeted her about not saying hi on the street! And she gave me a really great hug, said she was so happy to meet me, and that she was now following my tweets! :) That was definitely a top highlight of the trip.

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* God seriously spoke to my heart this weekend - through the speakers, the worship, the concerts, my new friends, and His word. Sheila Walsh's presentation was particularly close to my heart. I had one of those, "holy cow, she's been reading my diary!" moments. So I tweeted those words. A minute later, Natalie Grant wrote back "me too!" WOW! Again, that exchange was sweet on its own! But God is bigger than... During the final presentation of the weekend, all the porch pals came up onstage to ruminate on the happenings of the weekend. Sheila had the mic and talked about why Twitter was so neat in that it connects women everywhere. She talked about a girl named Cassie who had brought her aunt to the conference. Over the weekend her aunt decided to quit smoking and put all that money towards sponsoring a World Vision child. How cool is that?! So then Natalie Grant took the mic and talked about why she thought Twitter was so cool - it allowed her to connect with conference attendees in real time. During Sheilas' talk, Natalie said there was a moment where she thought, "boy! She's been reading my diary!" And then on twitter, a girl named Anna (that's me!) 'tweeted' that very sentence! It was so cool! She said, "So Anna, I got your tweet, and I totally agree!" I've never been called out, by name, by a celebrity in front of thousands of other women. I was humbled and grinning like a fool. God knows how to throw icing on a cake, huh?! *grins*

When the social media aspects of that conference are so awesome, then you know the actual content is incredible! I'll post more about it soon. Rest well tonight friends!

a girl

Origin: quickpua.blogspot.com