She Speaks Conference Contest....YaHoo!!

The last four years of my spiritual journey has been an incredible growth process. Though I have been a Christian since I was a child, I eventually found myself shattered and broken from living in my own will and while in the pit of my sin, I found the redemptive grace of God. In this healing and re-commitment, I have developed a personal relationship with Christ like I have never had before. As David in the Old Testiment wrote concerning His own spiritual journey:

"My soul finds rest in God alone;

my salvation comes from him.

He alone is my rock and my salvation;

He is my fortress, I will never be shaken."

~Psalm 62:1-2

I hold a lot of gratitude for this spiritual journey first and foremost to my God, the God of forgiveness and grace ("Surely it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish. In your love you kept me from the pit of destruction; you have put all my sins behind your back." Isa. 38:17) . I am also blessed with a godly husband who has been beside me living the journey himself and experiencing God becoming more real then He ever was in both our lives. It required daily Bible study and prayer and perserverance to be faithful and trust God in everything. It was also, for me, in the helpful resources of the Proverbs 31 Ministies and Beth Moore's Living Proof ministry, that I was able to better become a women after God's own heart. I love Him and daily I seek to love Him more. I was willing to be made willing, and He seems to be using me, despite where I have been and who I have been. I find God using me outside of my comfort zone. Daily I cry "How can I do this-look where I have been?" and daily God responds "Follow Me! Trust Me!" and so I walk in faith to what He has called me to. My desire is that my life may model the words in the prayer of Hezekiah from Isaiah 38:3:

"Remember, O LORD, how I have walked before you faithfully

and with wholehearted devotion

and have done what is good in your eyes."

Whether its working in our women's ministry or our teen ministry at church, writing on this blog, or simply serving my family, the patients that I care for, the college students that I teach, God has called me to share and testify of His goodness. I am to be salt-to represent His work (Matt 5:13 "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men."), to be light-to shine forth His magnitude of what He can do in a life (Eph. 5:8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.").

Every year my husband supports my trips to a Beth Moore conference or other types of spiritual retreats. This year my heart is yearning to attend the "She Speaks Conference" hosted by Proverbs 31 (http://www.shespeaksconference.com/). It offers so much! In attending this I am confident my heart, your heart, will be drawn that much closer to Christ and made that much more moldable for the calling He has for you and for me. I am a worn vessel, being rebuilt and mended, filled with His spirit to minister for His glory. He has used Proverbs 31 Ministries to do just that for me-it can do that for you! Lysa Terkeurst (president of Proverbs 31 Ministries) blog site (http://lysaterkeurst.blogspot.com/) is offering a free ticket to this event and this post is my entry into it. I challenge all readers to visit her site and be encouraged as she has encouraged me! God is doing a mighty work in and through this ministry. You will find a network of support as you journey to become a masterpiece for Christ. These women are very real and their faith, their commitment to serve God, and their spirit of love is very contagious! God's blessing to this ministry and by God's will--I hope to be there!! It will be a first for me and I have always dreamed of visiting the Carolina's-maybe now is the time!

"May God himself, the God of peace,

sanctify you through and through.

May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless

at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.

~1 Thessalonians 5:23-24

In His Grace~Pamela