Last weekend I was invited to speak at the Women Living Well Conference in Ohio. Like any conference I expected to have a good time, but I didn't expect things to be quite as incredible as they were. Everything about this trip was spectacular--the villa we stayed in, the women I stayed with, Friday morning devotions, and finally the conference on Saturday.
Courtney from Women Living Well was our host and she made every effort to serve us. It's not every day that you get treated like royalty--I really can't thank her enough.
Courtney on the right with her incredible conference planner, Katina on the left.
My plane arrived in Canton, Ohio on Thursday night, and Clare from Peak 313 Fitness picked me up at the airport. If you don't know Clare, let me just say, she's the most adorable person I've ever met. Clare was also my roommate at the villa along with Ruth Schwenk from The Better Mom who always enjoyed laughing into the wee hours of the morning.
We stayed at Gervasi Vineyard. Courtney reserved an entire villa for the speaking team, which has four bedrooms and a large common area. If I had to describe the villa in one word it would have to be WOW. Every bedroom had it's own fireplace and it's own bathroom. The Italian decor was unlike anything I've seen, and the warm colors were so inviting.
This is what our bedroom looked like. I loved the fireplace!
This was the common area where we had our morning devotions and enjoyed Nutella pizza at night!
Anyway... on to the conference. It was an all day conference with seven different speakers including myself. But rather than having us stand at the podium all day, Courtney broke it up into segments where we'd have a speaker at the podium for fifteen minutes and then we'd move to the couch for the 30 minute group discussion. I LOVED that format. It kept things moving throughout the day.
This is us during one of the panel discussions.
After hearing these women speak, I got to wondering why God put this cracked vessel on that stage. I was truly humbled to be among such talented women. Not only were they impeccable speakers, they delivered their message with such wisdom and grace. And Karen Ehman from Proverbs 31 Ministries--I can't tell you how hilarious that woman is! The things she came out with had us in stitches all weekend. Her spiritual gift is definitely "gab." LOL
The theme of the conference was: finding rest in your home, your marriage, your walk with God, your parenting, your health and your ministries. It was based on the words of our Lord found in Matthew 11:28 - "Come to me all you who are weary and I will give you rest." I pray that it was and will be an encouragement to women who might be feeling overwhelmed. As I said in my speech, we're not perfect, but we are being perfected by grace.
Even though we are all smiles here and the weekend may look “glamorous”, God brought each of us to this place through hard circumstances. Our stories that we shared and the ministries that He’s given us have all been birthed from a place of unrest and experience. - Clare, Peak 313 Fitness
The good news? The entire conference was recorded and will be webcast online Thursday nights at 10 pm EST starting September 26th. I'll definitely give you the heads up and a link when the date is closer.
Finally here is a group photo featuring all of the speakers. Each and every one of them is dear to my heart. Yet another blessing from God!
Speakers from left to right: Jen Thorn (Good Morning Girls), Clare Smith (Peak313 Fitness), Ruth Schwenke (The Better Mom), Courtney Joseph (Women Living Well), Whitney Daugherty (Good Morning Girls), There's me in the denim (LOL), Karen Ehman (KarenEhman.com and Proverbs 31 Ministries), Janelle Nehrenz (Comfy in the Kitchen), Angela Perritt (Good Morning Girls)
Today and every Tuesday, I want to invite bloggers to link-up any blog posts that will encourage women to joyfully live out their roles as wives and keepers of their homes I'm looking for posts on marriage, parenting, housekeeping, recipes, etc.
All you have to do is enter the direct link from your post into the linky tool below!
I'd also like to ask you to link back here with the Titus 2sday code (below) so that other bloggers can join in too!
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Wow, that's awesome! Can't wait to hear it! How lovely for you to be able to be together with all your friends, too. I'll bet you all were awesome.
ReplyDeleteI am speaking at my first women's conference in January and frankly am slightly terrified, lol! I'm glad I know that God will go with me! ;) Thanks for hosting today.
Thank you so much for hosting :-)
ReplyDeleteLoved seeing the photos! What a beauatiful & inviting place to hold a conference. Thank you for sharing & for hosting this link up each week.
ReplyDeleteBlessings,
Joanne
Thank you for the great link-up. Sounds like you had such a great time at the conference. God is great. The facilities were beautiful. I'm attending Allume in Oct. and can't wait.
ReplyDelete