I'm keeping them!

I attended the Women of Faith conference this weekend with my Mom and my two daughter in laws. I went well prepped as you saw in the last post. With kleenex and a rein on my emotions. The rein was let loose on the very first speaker. Her theme? Opening the box in our "stuff" entitled "Where were you God?" and once we open the box, can we Thank Him. Talk about getting shot between the eyes. And the praise song shortly after that? Used to be one of my favorites but the line in it that goes something about when we walk the way of suffering, still Blessed be the name of the Lord (paraphrased). I was a dismal mess after that. And in case you're wondering, No, I still cannot say thank you for what we've been through the last few months and praising God is still hard. But like the speaker's sister in law, I do remember that all things work together for good for those that love the Lord. I'm just not seeing the good.

Well, maybe a little bit. Our grandson was led to the Lord by my husband last Sunday. He confessed his sin and accepted Jesus as his personal savior. I can thank and praise God for that! And that my son is now in Heaven because of his acceptance of Jesus' work on the cross for him. There are still good things in my life but they're overshadowed sometimes by the grief and the ache.


And then! As if the talk wasn't enough! We left the conference for the 3 hour dinner break and went to the Mall for dinner and a bit of wandering. We arrived back an hour before the conference started for the evening session and found our seats and got comfortable. 7pm rolled around and it was fairly empty and one side of the Rose Garden was completely empty. There were 10 thousand ladies attending. Had we got the time wrong? Then the ladies in front of us got up and began to walk out. We asked where they were going and they replied, "bomb threat". We were dumbfounded. Then they turned around and came back as we were gathering our things and said, "all clear". Then a formal announcement was made to please quietly exit the auditorium and the conference would resume in the morning! The bomb squad was called in. Turns out it was a pvc pipe found in the bathroom by a Rose Garden employee and not dangerous. But a first for Women of Faith!

My amazing husband kept down the home front and watched 3 of our grandchildren (including one still in diapers) and our daughter all day Friday and Saturday so we could attend. He didn't just watch children. He and the kiddos picked 14 5 gallon buckets of concord grapes from our grape "fence" and made grape juice. Here is the result of Friday's labors: 43 jars!
Here is Saturday's labors! 60 jars! I did not mind one little bit cleaning up after! Matter of fact I cleaned the Whole house!

And while I was gone, Miss S finished two more shawls for the Hospice patients!

I think I have winners worth keeping. And my husband introduced a favorite meal to the grandchildren that he and the kids used to share whenever I was gone: crumble fried hamburger added to spaghettios. They, and now the grandkids, think it is delish.

It wasn't until I'd been home from the Women of Faith for a few hours that it dawned on me that one of the biggest blessings I came home with was the fact that I had just attended a two day Christian Women's conference with my Mom and two of the wonderful Mom's raising my grandchildren. All Christian women. THAT is indeed a blessing that I can heartily praise and thank the Lord for.