this weekend was the women of faith conference in tampa. it was a great weekend of fun, hanging out with wonderful friends, being refreshed and just relaxing away from the hubbub of everything that is my life. marilyn meberg was great, as were all of the speakers, but her message touched me most. once i heard from anita renfroe that "joy is on it's way"....that paved the way for other things i needed to hear. marilyn told the heartwrenching story of losing her husband, losing her 15 day old daughter, and getting closure. the biggest thing that hit me was that if we put up walls and our guard so we won't feel hurt, we're also putting up walls and our guard so we can't feel Jesus' presence in our lives. that really hit me. i've put up such thick walls, and i really want them to come down, but how do you go about that? i'm not (hopefully) on the edge of a major breakdown, but i want to have a breakthrough that just melts away the ice castle i've formed around my heart to keep it from feeling hurt. i know i need to have that close relationship with Jesus, but i just can't seem to do it when there are so many walls up. my prayer is that i can tear down the walls and begin to have the life that God truly wants me to have, not this mediocre-just-barely-surviving-and-clinging-onto-the-absolute-last-shred-of-hope/sanity that i have!
my prayer is to walk through the fear and experience the joy of following God and letting go of myself and my hurts and letting him take it all......after i get some sleep! lol
