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.