What I learned at the NCWA conference

Ok, get this……..

My husband Jason and I started a Financial Peace University course on February 9^th; I have to tell you this to lead up to this amazing story of Surrendering to Christ.

We were saved February 23^rd but that is another awesome story I’ll tell you about another time.

April 3^rd and 4^th we sold two old phones of the kids’ and made $200.00, then a broken phone we sold we made $50.00….so we had $250.00 at home just sitting around waiting for us to decide what to do with it…..if you know anything about Dave Ramsey you’ll know we were waiting to see what envelope we were going to put it in.

We started the bible study (I didn’t even really want to start because I was afraid the women in there would be nothing like me and all done up with make-up and nice clothes, you know what I mean?) on March 27^th.  Well, I had to fight myself to get myself there because I felt like God was leading me to GO but my depression was trying to win, too!

We went and we loved it.  And we have met the greatest people so far! We love them all!  At this point I haven’t mentioned my book to anyone other than my husband and my sister and her husband.  I felt a little ashamed still of my issues and for fear of rejection; I didn’t want to say much to anyone.  For some reason out of my mouth on the 6^th of April, I told our friend Kerri who runs the bible study, I wanted to write a book to help women and young girls to not go down the road I did.  She says there is a writing conference coming up and she would text her friend who runs another bible study Tuesday night (which was the 8^th) and I should go because one of the ladies, who help to put the conference on, would be at the bible study.  I reluctantly said yes and then was kicking myself every day until Tuesday night at 6:10 when I needed to leave……I fought myself because I still felt like God wanted me there but I was really unsure as to why and I was afraid I would run into women again who were nothing like me?  I met two published authors there; the bible study was all women and SO GREAT! The women were all so very nice. The conference was $179.00 and seemed like so much money to me! I had totally forgotten about the phone money but Jason reminded me and said we should use it for me to go. He was SO supportive, it was amazing….God kept leading me and I kept surrendering myself every day.

So I kept praying to God every day, if He wanted me there, He would make it work – I had no anxiety and was not going to worry over it.  “God, if you want me there, have my boss say it’s ok for me to have Friday off” because the money had fallen into place it was all coming together but this one last thing would be His answer to me.

My boss gave me the day off and I said ok, He wants me there.

Again, the morning of the conference I was afraid because of my story and I was in fear of judgment but I had NO idea what was in store for me because I had never been to anything like this at all…..except for the conference my sister and I went to 1 year ago when again it blurted out of my mouth “I want to write a book” When it comes out of my mouth I think to myself, “Who is this person saying this? You can barely speak correctly who do you think you are? Why would you be able to write a book? No one will want to read it, ever and then everyone in Yakima will know exactly just how bad of a person you are. Family would never want to be around you after they read what you write about!” So the adversary keeps trying to get me to believe him and I refuse, and just keep listening and surrendering every day to my Father! I often wonder why this is working now when I have had so many chances to surrender to Him and I thought I was but this time it is completely different…nothing compares to this.

If I said the conference was amazing it would be about 1/8^th of what it really was to me.  God kept speaking to me, through so many people and everywhere I looked and heard, He was telling me things.

I told an excerpt of my story to EVERYONE!!! 

You have to have a “catch” when you pitch to Agent’s and God helped me come up with one in a matter of 20 minutes. I didn't know I would have to do this and I had no idea what to expect when attending this conference. I just knew Christ was leading me and I wanted to obey. I was so nervous of the judgment that would be placed on me but He kept telling me to do it and I took a chance on Him.

After my first day I went home to Jason and was talking about everything. He said honey maybe you will someday be a public speaker for God. I said “it will never happen” and then the very next day I got up in front of everyone because God told me to! I said “this is not me so I’m a little nervous. My husband and I were saved on February 23^rd and everyone here at the conference has been such a blessing and I want to thank everyone.”The key speaker was Davis Bunn and he spoke after me and mentioned me, saying he was very proud of my courage and if you think this is wonderful you just wait, you are in for the ride of your life, this is just the beginning

Again, to me his comment was straight from God……telling me the exact same thing.  Everyone there was so encouraging, loving and helpful, some pushing me to write the book and one nice lady pushing me to go up on stage and say whatever it was I wanted to say.

What I learned at the conference and these last several weeks:

    To no longer judge women on what I think they will think of me and whether or not we will have the same interests
   I must surrender to God every single day and sometimes every single hour.

3 Trust myself when I hear the Holy Spirit encouraging me to live for Christ and tell everyone.

4 I need to continue to step out of my comfort zone for God to grow in His love.

This is my 1^st ever blog post.  Please give me some Grace J  I’m not the best grammatically but I love Christ and I’m going to tell everyone about Him!

Praise the Lord.

My new friend in Christ has the Photo credit: 

www.mindypeltier.com