Note Taker

Whenever I am listening to someone speak or preach, I take notes. I have always been someone who likes to take notes....I think it helps me process things better. I mostly write down what speaks to me the most and what I would like to remember and have to look over again.

Without a doubt, my favorite teaching/preaching to sit under is my husband's. I know this sounds biased, but it is the absolute truth. He is my favorite preacher and every week I am taking notes like a mad woman while he is preaching. The fun thing is that because I live with him, I get to talk to him all about his sermons when they are done. And, I also always add in there how cute he is while he is doing it:)

This past weekend I was blessed to be able to go to Women of Faith in Indy and came home with lots of notes! The weekend was filled with excellent speakers and I gained so much from my time there. It is a great environment to be in....11,000 women gathered to learn and worship. And, the best part was that I got to share it with some wonderful ladies from church!

I wanted to share some of the favorite things I have written in my notes from the weekend -

Patsy Clairmont was one of my favorite speakers and she talked about emotions....here are some things she had to share:

* A good prayer to pray is, "Lord, help me not to spew out the first thing that comes to my mind."

* "Put boundaries on your emotions."

* This one is my favorite...."God has given us a will, and our will is to be stronger than our emotions."

* "Edit your words to minimize your word count." Rules to use:
1. Don't complain
2. Don't whine
3. Don't exaggerate

My very favorite speaker of the weekend was Mary Beth Chapman. She is the wife of Steven Curtis Chapman and they have been through much pain in their lives in the recent two year since the death of their five year old daughter. She was so real and honest and much of what she talked about had to do with grieving, which is a place we have been in recent days.

She talked about the pain they have walked through, yet how much they learned about the goodness of God during that time. She said that if she could sum up the last two years of her life it would be, "God is good, even when life is hard." Amen, sister!

I never ceased to be amazed at the ways God can speak to me at just the right time and how He often does it through people who are faithful to share His truth time and time again. I am thankful for those people from this weekend and for all of the people whose words of God fill lots of pages of notes. Most of all, I am thankful for God's truth that can be trusted at all times.