Fear Not...

Last night I had the joy of attending the first meeting for our church's annual Women's Conference.  The past two years I have had the delight in serving with some wonderful women in preparation for the event.  My part, fitting enough, is to take care of organizing, ordering, and presenting...LUNCH.  I love it!

So last night we were talking about the speaker, whom I have never heard of, and the topic for the conference.   The speaker is Andree Seu and the topic is Fear.  Andree writes for WORLD magazine and has a depth about her that I am just beginning to unearth.  We were given her book of essays, We Shall Have Spring Again, and last night I stayed up reading through a few.  These are liquid gold...amazing stuff.

I'm excited to hear what she has to say, to help ready the meal, and to see the hearts of women changed as God sees fit.  The conference is April 23-24 and if you would like to help out with lunch, I love volunteers, and if not, I hope you will pray about coming.  I mean, really who doesn't struggle with fear:)

Here's a glimpse into Andree...

In her essay Trust Me, she is struggling with insomnia and calling out to the Lord to help heal her.  I'm not sure all of us struggle with this, but we struggle with other things so feel free to replace insomnia with other things such as fear, anxiety, control, obedience, love.

"This is the best I can do with unanswered prayer.  The possible answers seem to be "yes," "no," or "you have no idea what's going on behind the curtain of your sensate reality, so you best make up your mind once and for all--I love you.  Will you trust me?"

Isn't that the truth.  And following this in another essay she states...

"You can say I'm depressed.  So what?--and carry on iwth the energy God supplies.  All the while you keep in mind that your one neighbor has chronic back pain and your other neighbor has neurofibromatosis.  You are not a tragic special case, cut off by a chasm from the rest of humanity.  The condition is just what is common to man, the prescription is still faith, and the grace for it is inexhaustible."

I love her straightforward style and at the end of the day, she's right. 

"For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison" and because Christ is with us we can trust in God's word "Fear not, for I am with you.  Be not dismayed for I am your God." 

Life in Fast Forward

Have you ever felt that way? Our lives in the past week have been crazier than ever. Last week Alex was busy working on the houses, I was busy planning out the new kitchen and packing up our house, and over the weekend we were both busy serving at our church for our women's conference.

The conference went amazing...we had 392 women attend and as for what I heard, the speaker Susan Hunt, was sensational! Why didn't I hear it all? Well I was in charge of feeding the 400, or so I called it for the conference. We ordered lunches from Panera, but then with my amazing crew of 13 we fulfilled our duties leaving nary a crumb afterwards! It was a hit, but stressful as well. With my mom, Alex's mom, and Alex all helping it was so fun! But I am glad it was over. Hearing from many they seem to think that catering would be right up my alley, but due to the stress levels, I think I will keep it for special occasions. Though I did love planning the menu, getting everything together, and revealing the final product!

One more announcement...Our first OPEN HOUSE is this weekend. We don't really like to sit around much:) So pray we can get things ready. Though the landscaping is not complete, it's lake season and the best time to have our house open.

Here are the new pics from our new house. This last week the second story addition was framed in and today the roof is going on...it's coming together!