Back from the Conference!

The past four days I spent at the Women's Conference, put on by the International House of Prayer. It was AWESOME! I haven't been to one in a few years, so this year was good to go again and to be refreshed! The worship was awesome, especially the sets by Misty Edwards! I love the worship there.....it never lasted under 75 minutes! It's such a great time to 'tune out' the cares of this life and focus on the One who is worthy of all our adoration and affection! (If you want, you can tune into their worship via the internet: www.ihop.org and go to media. There is a monthly fee to tune into this online, but we love it! We have it playing in our house all the time and it creates a great atmosphere!)

My favorite speaker of the weekend was Dana Candler. Her message was on wholeheartedness, but what really struck me was how she talked about the 'commonness' of her life now that she has 2 little ones at home and isn't in as much ministry as she used to be, etc. And, how she just feels like her life is so 'common' and yet how God has so been teaching her about how this is an opportunity to go deeper in love. That her identity is simply that she is loved and she is a lover. It was so good for me to hear this! Dana is so down to earth and real and I love that!

This was good for me, because I realized that this is a lot of what I've felt since moving. In Iowa, our life was so different -- so much depended on us, people knew us, we were busy, and 'doing' and it was good. But, here I am just 'me' and I'm not 'doing' and nothing really depends on me (other than the day-to-day operations of our family), and I just realized how 'common' my life seems and how much life has slowed down. I enjoyed that for a time, but now it's been difficult to just 'be'.

It reminded me of something we used to say in Christ-Life a lot: we are human BEINGS, not human DOINGS! And, it was just a good reminder for me this weekend that we are made to be loved by God and to love him, that's it. Everything else is just a part of what we do, but it's not WHO we are. I want God to teach me to give myself to love in the commonness of life. I want Him to press me deeper into His heart. I want my identity to be only who I am, not what I do. I want to give myself to eternal things......things that truly matter.

Sunday we went to church at Forerunner Christian Fellowship, which is connected with IHOP, and have pretty much decided that will be our home church. We love it there! It's huge, so we have to 'make' it a priority to find relationships, but we love the worship there and the teachings are so awesome. Yesterday was the International "Prayer for Israel" day and it was quite festive at FCF! We sang some Hebrew songs and there was lots of dancing and celebrating and interceding for the nation of Israel. We're realizing more and more how important Israel is to the heart of God. He is awakening our hearts to this truth. We want to care about the things God cares about, and we know He cares about Israel. It was so awesome to give our hearts to praying for that nation and the Jewish people yesterday.