She Speaks pre-conference

Once again, my time at the She Speaks conference was sheer delight ... followed by sheer exhaustion. Remember I said for 2 days afterwards I generally sit in the corner and drool, unable to do anything but watch movies? Well that time has commenced, so I'll just hit the highlights of some of what I did while there.


Tuesday-Thursday it was just the P31 team. Believe it or not, this is the only time of the year we are all together physically in one place! That's why we love coming to She Speaks so much. They don't pay us to come, but they don't have to. I'd walk across burning coals to spend time with these gals. (metaphorically speaking, of course - I'm a wimp about pain.)


Thursday night we had dinner with our special guests: the publishers, agents and bloggy experts we'd invited to serve with us at the conference. I had the total pleasure of dining with Stephanie of DaySpring, Holley of Heart to Heart with Holley, Emily of Chatting at the Sky, and The Nester of Nesting Place. Yes, Nester has a first name, but I won't print it for fear of spelling it wrong - or spelling it right and enabling you to find her tax records online.


Each of these gals were easy-going, fun, funny, interesting, intelligent and comfortable to hang with. I love meeting new friends and already look forward to seeing them again.


Speaking of new friends, remember I told you I was rooming with a complete stranger from outside our speaker team this year? LOVED HER. That was a great decision - a God decision in fact.


The first night Ariel and I met, which was after my dinner with the swanky blog chicks, we were up until 1:30 AM talking our girly selves to death. Well, that was pretty much every night actually. The last night we went from talking in the suite, to talking while sitting in our beds, to talking while laying down on our pillows, to still talking after we'd turned out the lights. We clicked in a way that wasn't just a relief but a treat.


Can't wait to buy Ariel's book this week. It's called Eye of the God and it's about the Hope diamond ... I love me some big bling, y'all. Her book is one of 3 picks for the launch of P31's She Reads this fall.

Soooo glad Rob Eager is a good presenter, because I spent all of Friday morning in his pre-conference sessions. Great information ... nearly overwhelming to take in all at once, but really good. He says I need to understand what I uniquely "bring to the table" as a speaker and writer. I'm not sure I do. I think its hard to see your own uniqueness. I'd be curious to hear what you all think - how would you describe my strengths or value as a Christian communicator?

At lunch on Friday I sat with some terrific women's ministry leaders. There I met a gal from South Africa. She told me that in her country no one is deemed worthy to be seen as an "expert." So they always read books from people outside the country, bring in speakers from outside the country. It reminded me of Jesus' comment that no one can be an expert in their own hometown. This woman was definitely worthy of listening to. She was such a total gem and I would love to travel there to do ministry with her someday.

After lunch and one more session, I changed clothes into my official P31 shirt and gathered with the team for our entrance to the opening session of the conference. This year we sauntered and danced our way on stage to a funky remix of "We Are Family." Don't worry, Cheri Keaggy had opened us up with worship first.

Lysa nearly made me cry right there on stage y'all (in the pic above) while talking about her love for this team. She Speaks may be the only place one can go from dancing to a funky beat to crying inside of 2 minutes. That's me to the right of the table number 31 (how appropriate).

I'll stop here since I've already given you lots of links to check out, asked you to help me discern why my readers read me, and plus, I have to get back to drooling. I'll post more about the conference later this week.