Carefully laid out plans

Last week I just came back from a ladies conference that I spoke at with my friend Taffy, based on the book, "Captivating" by John and Stassi Eldridge. This book, and more importantly, the conference has changed the lives of many women across the globe. So, when Taffy asked me, "Do you want to help me lead a conference?" I had to stop in my tracks and ask myself, "Is God leading me here?" After a few weeks of prayer, God said yes, and I began a journey that would be worth the fight to see the end result. It was not an easy battle. You see, the enemy does not want women to be free from their wounds, and see a glimpse of how God truly see them, or even have the tools to fight off the lies of the enemy. So, me and Taffy were hit hard, by the lies ourself. "You can do this, you are too proud, you are not good enough, you don't know what you are talking about, they aren't going to like you, you aren't even a speaker, this is going to mess up your family, you might lose friends in doing this..." and on and on the lies went. But, we soldered on. God brought us again back to our own journeys, and showed us where we still needed to grow in our faith, and in our relationship. He loved on us, He reminded us of our true character, and how He created us. He healed more wounds, and He prepared us for the weekend that I will never forget. Taffy picked me up at 10am at the airport and we rushed back to her place to finish up loading our "essetials". But, little to our knowledge, she grabbed the wrong computer...with all the media we can carefully and prayerfully planned out. LORD! We need a computer fast! He delivered. As I prayed in each cabin room He started to reveal the hearts of the beautiful women that were soon to arrive. My heart broke, but I was amazed at how He was already preparing me to pray for them. It was a mad scrabble before the first meeting of that day, but by 3:30p Taffy started on her first message, The Heart of a Women. I could see some of the women resistant (I am sure fighting some of the lies we had in the coming weeks). I sensed a desire, so want more, that they were fed up of how things were, and fear of if God was really going to show up, and somewhat of a hopelessness. But, God was there, and all through the weekend He continued to show us, "I've got it". He had us, He had them, He carried us all. As the weekend unfolded, our "perfect plan" was changed, added too, switched around, to become God's perfectly laid out plan. The women opened up, they started to trust, they brought their pain and their tears and their fears to God, and I was overwhelmed by God's power and His blessings. I left that retreat not only in a state of utter amazement for the God of the universe, but also with 15 new strings of friends attached to my heart. As I was driven out to the airport by 2 of my new friends, I didn't want to leave. God brought us close together, and Taffy and I couldn't believe that He brought us through this journey to be blessed beyond our belief. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emYGrVrCv-g&feature=share&list=PLCA3DFA985FA05020