Just getting here...

Well my blog friends, I finally made it to the Writer's Conference; however, not without a few obstacles along the way. I began my morning with my sweet family loving on me. My sweet husband took Reid to school so that I would have some extra time to get ready. When he returned, he offered to keep Cole and Ella and let me go teach my class this morning at church before heading to the airport.

I jump in his car to go and get to the church quite a bit later than I normally would...but was taking my time. As I walk up to the church door, I realize, I have Bry's keys and not mine. Therefore, I have no key to get into the church. The only other person that would be coming that would have a key was our pastor's wife, Charity. She had just called me to say she wouldn't be coming as her son was sick. So, I had to call the church office and have poor Amanda bring me a key. If I told you all of my key stories with the church, you would not believe me.

I felt totally and utterly unprepared for my lesson this morning, but I have to say that once we got started....the Holy Spirit totally took over. I felt as though we had such great, deep conversation. We were all digging deeper together.

I drove home as fast as I could without getting a ticket and we loaded up for Bry to take me to the airport. It's noon at this time and my poor children hadn't eaten lunch yet. Bry thought we could all eat together, but then I got home late. Needless to say, we both had to fight off frustration with each other.

He drops me off and talks me out of taking my camera and my big coat. My bag was too heavy he was telling me. I have a lot of stuff that I had to bring to the conference, so the camera had to go. I know my photography friends....don't be upset and don't lecture me! Trust me, as I got here, I am bummed I don't have it as it is beautiful. However, I really feel that God is telling me to focus only on the conference and not anything else. I am here for one purpose and one purpose only!

I, of course and as always, had to have extra done to my bags. I asked the guy what he was testing my bag for and he looked at me with a smirk and said explosives! Oh. I think I'd better shut up now and just let the man do his job!

The plane ride went well until the end. We hit several turbulents and I gotta tell ya....since I was pregnant with Reid, I can't handle those. I actually used to LOVE them and now, it's all I can do to not throw up on the person next to me. I was literally sweating by the time we landed and made a mad dash to the bathroom! I was fine...just needed to put my head between my legs for a second or two.

I did meet a lady on the plane that was traveling with her 5 yr old son. She was asking about my notebook that I had and what study I was taking. It was my notes over Ruth and what I was working on getting ready to post on my other blog. She told me that she had a desire to write Sunday School curriculum for special needs children! I really encouraged her in that area as I thought that was really neat. I had never thought about that. She just felt that there wasn't anything geared toward them and she wanted them to go to church and feel loved on as well! I hope she does it one day.

I had scheduled a shuttle to take me from the airport to here, but really wanted to get a rent car...which incidently, I forgot to do this week from home. So, the only cars available was going to cost me around $400. YIKES! Shuttle it is.

Ummmm....have you ever taken a shuttle for an hour and a half trip? Yeah, me either till today. And guess what? I was one of the lucky ones that got to ride in this big, white van ALONE with the drive!!!!! I called Bry while he was walking around the car and was like: "PRAY FOR ME!!!" I think I made him a little nervous. I was nervous. At any rate, the man turned out to be sweet and talked the ENTIRE ride.

He's a HUGE Cowboy fan...so we talked shop for a long time comparing the teams and targeting what improvements our Boys needed to make. That was of course so fun for me!

He gave me a history lesson about the Indian reservations that we were passing on our way. I have always been intrigued with the Indians so I loved hearing all he had to say.

He showed me where there were volcanoes and how they believe that one of them is getting ready to blow. I'm like....how far will the lava go if it blows? I mean, that's the last thing I need right now! ;-) He told me that the last time the volcano errupted was 1 million years ago! "Hmmm, that's interesting. How did they determine that it errupted 1 million years ago? They can't even prove that the earth has been here that long." He didn't know, but he thought it was interesting.

So, I used this opp to ask him if he went to church. He never answered me about himself really. He just told me about where his parents went. He talked very fondly of his parents and seems to be very close to them. They own 600 acres in the mountains there. Anyway, he said that they go to a thing called The Reflections. It's not church, but apparently, there was a woman (one of which he couldn't remember her name) that lived in the jungles of S Africa and she claimed that God audibly talked to her there and so she wrote a book that unlocks ALL of the mysteries of the Bible. That's what he said. I will have to do more research on this. Course, I was trying to tell him that the mysteries of the Bible will never be unlocked until we are in heaven. We are not meant to know all the mysteries. It's a bit ironic that we talked about this this morning in our Bible study class before I left Dallas. Do you think God was preparing me for this conversation or what?

He was then telling me about his daughters. One is a biological daughter and the other is his step daughter. Anyway, his daughter is pregnant and he thinks she's too young and she doesn't have a "good man" in her life, so he says: "I hate to do this because I don't think I believe in this, but I am going to tell her to abort the child!" Those of you that know me and know me well, know that this is a HUGE subject with me that I am EXTREMELY passionate about. We talked for some time about how he should encourage her to adopt the baby. I talked about how there are sooooo many good parents out there that can't have their own babies and would love to love this child. He seemed quite contemplative as he said: "You know, maybe that's what I should do. Maybe I should tell her to adopt the baby!" I said a prayer right there that he would and that she would!!!!!

I finally get here, get checked in and then have to lug my luggage a little ways in the really cold, gusty winds! But hey, I am here and I feel such peace.

The first session tonight was good and encouraging. It's amazing the different types of people you see. I think I had them all stereo typed to look a certain way and let's just say that NONE of them are what I expected. Isn't that why we shouldn't put expectations on others?

Tomorrow is a big day. I ask that you pray that I get to meet with the editors I chose and that we have an encouraging conversation. I haven't felt this passionate in so long. I really can hardly contain my excitment. I keep wishing that Bry was here with me or one of my close friends, and I keep hearing the Holy Spirit say...this is your time. Be still. Listen to me. Don't focus on anything but the conference. You may be thinking, why are you blogging??? Mainly because I am asking for prayer coverage and because I want to always remember every step of this conference, and this is my outlet. I would rather type this all in as opposed to writing it! Did that sound odd considering I'm at a WRITER'S conference? He he.