2,500 Reasons To Remember

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Romans 15:13

General Sam Huston led the battle cry “Remember the Alamo” nearly 180 years ago.  I will follow the advice of that great General myself and remember the Alamo but probably for a very different reason. I had the pleasure of speaking at a Catholic Women’s Conference in San Antonio and my hotel was literally yards away from the Alamo.  I had a couple hours before the conference started on Friday afternoon so I decided to do a little exploring and I can’t even describe my shock to walk a few steps down the street and realize I was standing right in front of such an amazing sight.  I was struck by the beauty and charm of the city but little did I know I hadn’t seen the greatest treasure of all yet.  Friday evening as I made my way to the Convention center I began to see the real beauty and treasure of Texas…its strong women of faith!  When the seats were full and the conference began I found myself in the presence of 2,500 faith filled, joyful, enthusiastic daughters of God. So, what do you suppose happens when you gather 2,500 God loving women in one room?  Everything happens; laughing, crying, hugging, praying, singing and lots of praising the God who loves them.   The energy in that room was overwhelming!  I was invited to San Antonio to present or to give but I’m amazed at how quickly that flipped around and I became the receiver instead of the giver.

There are so many pearls of wisdom I gathered this weekend and there are a few that I really want to share.  God is so smart because one of the golden threads of wisdom woven throughout the whole weekend was trust Him with a grateful heart!  He has a plan and we need to get our selfish self out of the way.  As I boarded the plane in San Antonio Sunday afternoon I was thinking about that and the patience it requires.  I was also thinking about a fellow presenter, Noelle Garcia’s story about an airplane near disaster.  Those two things had me deep in thought when the flight attendant announced that there was a problem with our plane and what they thought would be a simple fix had turned into a substantial problem so we were all taken off the plane and sent on our way to rebook flights.  I just laughed as I dialed the 1-800 number to find a new way home.  With trust and patience I sat in the airport for 5 hours waiting for a flight back to Michigan. There was no frustration or frazzle, the peace of the weekend left me with a feeling of gratefulness and I was so happy to be safe and patient!  As I watch others stomp and storm around fussing about something that simply couldn’t be changed I realized there was a plan and it included flying home through Chicago instead of Dallas.  Gratefulness is a much easier emotion to deal with than stress!

Another little pearl from the weekend is that we will all do battle in this life but we can choose the battleground.  If we enter into the thinking that we are not worthy enough or holy enough or good enough to deserve God’s love we are on a battleground where we will always loose.  If you find yourself wandering on to that battlefield stop and remind yourself that God’s love cannot be earned or deserved it just IS.  It is our gift from the one who created us.  When you feel yourself headed into that battle stop and acknowledge the truth and then realize we are expecting something from ourselves we can never achieve and that is never required.  He wants us to ask him for His love and His strength and His truth those are the things we need to win the battle.  Turn it all to Him and victory will be certain.

I could write three or four posts about all the things sitting on my full heart right now but I’ll save it for later.  I’d like to end this post with my favorite line from the conference.  This beautiful, powerful one liner came from Archbishop Gustovo during his homily.  He said, “We don’t need more pious women we need more Prophets of Hope!”  We need to be the voice of hope.  We need to do more than just believe in the idea of hope or pray for hope we need to spread the promise and the good news of hope like a prophet.  When we take a look at this crazy world we live in its easy to see that hope is what we’re lacking.  We hope for safety, for peace, for love, for acceptance, for security and for all things good.  God the Father is what we are hoping for because He is the answer to every worry, concern, tragedy and issue in this world.  The problem is we don’t live like we know it.  When we become people of hope instead of people of fear, fret and doubt things will be different.  As Christians this isn’t new news but it’s our job to live like we believe it and it’s our job to share that good news.

A Seed To Plant:  Spend some time this week praying with this verse from Romans and make a list of things you hope for.  When you begin to feel the hope of Christ fill your heart become a prophet of hope and share it!

Blessings on your day!