I experienced #InfluenceConf from a different place than most of the women attending. I even experienced it from a different place than I did at our inaugural event in 2012.
This year, instead of speaking on strategy tips and riffing on Q&As for most of my session–Jessi and I purposefully decided that I’d speak to the whole group and do so vulnerably.
This was the most uncomfortable thing for me at the conference. It was the only thing I was nervous about. I wasn’t nervous about speaking in front of people. I would have been nervous to speak the words I strung together, even if I was alone in a dark closet. I wasn’t nervous about being on stage at all. I wasn’t even nervous about the topic. I was massively hesitant until just moments before my talk began, the kind where your stomach flip-flops and you wonder what would happen if you just refused to open your mouth. I didn’t feel like God had given me the strand to pull all of my months of study and all of my pages of notes together.
But, I knew He would show up. He had honored our obedience with starting Influence Conference, He had been faithful in growing me as a woman rooted firmly in Christ, He had been nothing but gracious and loving in my feeble attempts to figure this all out. I knew that He would show up and He did.
I heard once that God is never early, but always on time. He doesn’t give you the ticket to get on the train until you need it. That’s how I felt about this talk–and truthfully, His timing is what kept driving me back to God for my strength rather than boasting in my awesome talk.
The women who served every attendee at Influence Conference were incredibly loving and gracious. I couldn’t be more thankful for them. It would be impossible and I might explode from gratitude. Those women (I couldn’t even list them all, none of them were paid, and not even all of them were in an official “Influence capacity) loved and loved and loved and worked to make sure every woman felt included. I heard over and over how welcoming Influence was, and it was not because of our official “team”–because a group of 6 cannot effectively love 270. It was because of each volunteer, each attendee, each speaker, each sponsor. THOSE are the people who made Influence the most cozy place to be.
You should read other attendee’s recaps, they are much more profound and beautiful than mine. They have the true perspective of the weekend–more so than I do. Their words are beautiful, no matter how they experienced the weekend (and the experiences were varied and honest).
More than anything, I walked away from the weekend more sure than the very thump-thump of my heartbeat that women need to hear of God’s great gift of freedom. We are a generation of women living small and scared–trying to please others and our own small and scared selves. We believe lies that we were never meant to live, and when we walk in those lies we live a life drastically different than the one God desires for us.
I hear a few truth-tellers and soul-soothers whispering this message, but I want us to embrace it and hope boldly for freedom…a big life, one emptied out to be filled up again, utterly convinced of our own inability but knowing full well God’s.
If you want to know a lady who is also speaking this truth, get to know Emily P. Freeman. She is a friend, and one I’m glad to look up to. She spoke at last year’s Influence Conference and just wrote her third book. I’d encourage you to check it out, because it will apply to you regardless of the kind of lady you are. She wrote a post about her book process that was like a heavy, comforting blanket. I know her words in general feel like that to me, and I hope they make you feel something, too.