Skip to main content

Conference Eve

It is the eve of the conference that I have been planning and carrying inside my spirit since January.  Yes, I truly have been pregnant with this conference and tomorrow is my due date!  Literally nine months.  So I thought it would be fun to share a little bit of my journey with you.

January 
First Trimester (1 to 12 weeks)
It was unplanned! I had no intention of getting "pregnant" and I most certainly wasn't trying to - it just happened. I sat considering the year ahead and felt that this was the year to focus on building something for the women. Until this point I had never felt the time was right, but now, on this day, it felt right. So I opened my heart and wrote down a few ideas on my blog.

I started off with a Girls Night! It seemed like a fun idea and didn't look like too much work. The focus was very specifically to disciple and care for the girls in our church. It was not to be a time of outward focus and reaching out to the lost, this was very much about growing our girls into beautiful, Godly women.

Every Tuesday night, at my home, we had a nice time together over a lovely dinner. The focus of our Girl's Night was to get closer to each other and closer to God, so that we could be all that God wanted us to be. We spent time chatting about real life stuff, we prayed for each other and cared for each other. For special occasions we planned to dress up and go out somewhere fancy - just for fun! Our theme was to explore the big question for 2011 - "What is the true meaning of being a woman?"

Slowly the focus shifted - I couldn't see myself only having an inward focused group - we needed to be beautiful, Godly women for a purpose. When the girls grew a little, my plan was to offer them an opportunity to reach out to the lost and dying world around them, and to share what they had gained in our Girl's Nights.

Girl's Friday Nights would become a monthly girls night with a sharp focus to reach out to women in our community who are struggling with life and who are far from God. Our cities are filled with lonely, hurting woman who are desperate for solutions in their life and before King's Daughters attempts to have a global impact we must first have a local impact. As always we would have great fun nights but these nights were specifically set aside for us to reach out to others, starting with our neighbours and people we meet daily, as well as women trapped in detention centres, prostitution, asylum, single parenthood and so many other things.

Conception
Then it happened, the conference was conceived. I had no idea that I had conceived a conference, I just wrote a few thoughts down. It seemed like a good idea so why not? I thought nothing of it and added it to the line up for the year.

I wrote, "An exciting look at what can happen when a woman places her ordinary life into the hands of an extraordinary God! King's Daughters exists to inspire and challenge women to understand their identity and value so that they can lead an amazing, abundant life with passion and purpose. The King's Daughters Conference is a unique experience where you will encounter God, be completely refreshed and equipped to be all you can possibly be."

Words flowed with ease onto my blog and the date was set.  I didn't think anything of it and got on with my year.

Early Signs of Pregnancy
Tiredness consumed me. My usual energetic, perky, self motivated self had become a very tired heap of 'nothing'. Nothing inspired me, nothing motivated me and nothing interested me. Some days I was even scared, wondering what had happened to me. How did I go from the high that I was on last year to this exhausted, tired, very low woman. Something was wrong but I didn't know what.

After careful examination I determined that I was not depressed. I still had my joy and I still loved life. Hope was still in place and there as nothing that I wanted to change. I was simply tired! Little did I know that this was one of the most common early sign of pregnancy.  I almost forgot about the conference until one day when I started dabbling with the events page on my blog again. The idea started to tug at me and I thought perhaps this would actually happen.

Confirmation of Pregnancy
Randomly, out of the blue, one of our congregation came up to me after I preached one Sunday, and said, "That was a conference message young lady!"

I was very surprised. Of all the things he could have said, why those words. He had no idea of the plans I had made or the desires of my heart. Even I didn't fully realise the desires of my heart until he said those words. Of course! Of course it's a conference message. I found myself delighted and excited and ready to make firm plans to do this conference that I had so boldly written about. The pregnancy test had been done and the pregnancy was now confirmed. I could no longer deny that there was something growing inside of me.

Within days the tiredness started lifting and the excitement grew. It was official now - I was doing a women's conference in September - nine months after conception. At the time, of course, I didn't count the months, it was only upon reflection that I realised the significant timeline.

April
Second trimester (13 to 27 weeks)
Busyness and frantic planning had left little to write about during this trimester.  All I can say is that I was extremely excited with occasional patches of nervousness.  Most of the time I simply busied myself with the preparations for this big day!

August
Third trimester (28 to 40 weeks)
It was August with about four weeks to go and I felt so tired! I felt like I was carrying a heavy weight around with me all the time.  Everything felt like such hard work. I had only sold three tickets and was hoping to have sold one hundred by this point. I felt like giving up so many times but the nagging 'what ifs' were my constant companion.  What if it all worked out at the last minute? What if God was testing my faith and I failed by quitting?  What if lives were depending on this? So I held on and kept pushing forward. I didn't want to wish my life away but I did really wish it was the 11th September or the 12th, or any day AFTER the conference! Each day seem so tiring and so stressful. When I was not worrying about ticket sales I was remembering that I had to preach two messages and host the whole thing. That was even more scary than the ticket sales!  So I ignored it and stayed focused on the details of the conference, the things that I could control!

9 September
Now it is the day before the due date, I have done all that I can do, all that is within my control.  The rest is up to God now!  Watch this space for the photos, I can't wait to share the photos with you :) If you haven't got a ticket yet there is still time.  If you are reading this on Saturday, still please come on over and join us, we will find you a seat, we will find you a nice cuppa coffee and we will welcome you.  Don't miss out - come on over and share in this precious, joyous moment.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Conference Feedback

We had a beautiful day together on 8th September, thank you so much to you all for your incredible support and prayers. Feedback and testimonies have already started flooding in, have a read of some of them here . Also, keep an eye on our YouTube page as we update it with the speakers messages and conference highlight videos. We had the stunning Instruments of Praise gospel choir lead us in worship and it was truly heavenly. We also had Daughters of Davis who absolutely blew us away with their fantastic acoustic folk/soul vibe. Our Women in Business section was a real treat with stalls offering all sorts of beautifully displayed goods. Jill Chitty from the Entrepreneurs Circle spoke to the women in business offering practical tips for business growth. Other breakout sessions included a Hope for Justice talk by Naomi and Cynthia shared her testimony of life as a Samburu woman . Molly Catherine Beebee from Cirencester Creative Dance Academy dazzled us with

For Such a Time As This

Hello King's Daughters, It's been a while since I've been in touch and King's Daughters has been very quiet, in fact totally dormant.  During this time of dormancy, a seed has been growing inside of me and it's so strong that I have to seriously consider if it's God saying "It's time".  Time to start taking back what the enemy has stolen from us. Time to fight for our families, schools, churches, communities and nation. Time to pray together and be proactive, not reactive to what is going on in the world today. Time to talk about the complex topics that our churches may not be ready to discuss openly such as gender confusion and mental health issues. Time to learn how to generate an income or second income by using what's in our hands and to have extra to be generous to the world around us as we face economic uncertainty.  Time to find balance when everyone else is consumed by busyness. I have a story to tell, a struggle I've been through t

Hope's Journey

"There was a time when all I wanted was to die but now that I have tasted life I really don’t want to die until I have truly lived!" Hope's Journey is a heart wrenching account of Angela's struggle with depression and suicide.   "This book is helpful for people that are going through tough times as well for those who are trying to support them. It gives valuable insight into the feelings experienced in the midst of the situations as well as the tools Angela used to find her way through them. The tools are useful for anyone trying to find hope in dark situations, whatever they may be, and are helpful for leading a stronger, more balanced life." Ali Kirkwood  Available at: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk | Kindle StudyGuide: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk | More Info  Contents: Introduction Suicide Eat, Sleep & Exercise Have a Checkup First Things First Make Hope Make List Tell Someone Choose Your Friends Understand Hormo