My Only Hope

OK, so I know that isn't the best picture ever known to man. But, I like it. It was taken in Colorado and we were hiking to a place called Sundance Mountain. As the name would suggest, it's a great place to see the sunset from. It faces the west and provides an excellent viewpoint as the sun "dances" behind the other side of the continental divide. On this particular night, however, it was cloudy (which amplified the sunset in my opinion as the sun rays beamed down through the holes in the clouds) and rainy. It didn't start raining right away, but by the time we got down, my legs were frozen ice sticks. It was a good time, though. I made the mistake of running up part of it. Not the best idea at 10,000 feet. Oh well. Live and learn, friends. Live and learn.

I just returned from an amazing weekend at a conference designed to better equip women interested in speaking and writing in the ministry. It was held by Proverbs 31 Ministries and far exceeded my expectations. Pretty easy feat, I suppose, since I didn't really have any expectations to begin with. But it was really such a blessing.

For a while, I have felt nudged to kind of check out the whole "writing" aspect of ministry, but have felt many hesitancies in doing so. The main reason being that I just figured everyone struggled with the same issues I do and that thousands of woman have the exact same thing to say, they can just say it better. How arrogant to think that my problems are the only problems women have. SO not true! The walks of life represented there just made my head spin. The Lord is revealing His faithfulness in so many ways throughout hundreds of different trials faced by women today. I was completely clueless. It was a packed weekend that I am still absorbing. It felt odd getting into the shuttle today to ride back to the airport......I wasn't ready to leave. I wanted to learn more and hear more about God's work. It truly was such a blessing. The number one thing I will take away was the humbling reminder of how sweet and how gentle the love of our Father is. It blows me away.

Aside from the amazing spiritual blessings the weekend offered, it was also very insightful / helpful into the world of Christian publishing. For example, any given publisher will receive between 10,000 and 20,000 book proposals in a year. On average, only between 15-100 of those are published. I realize the rather broad gap between those statistics, but at its best, that means that on average, only 1% of submitted manuscripts are published per publisher, per year. Yikes! It's good, though, because through the reality of it all, it was so encouraging. I know that sounds odd, but above all, God is faithful.

I definitely have more to say on the issue, but it's probably one of those things where if you want to know more, you'll have to ask. Because I'm tired of blogging right now and I probably won't get around to it again. ;) In the mean time, I leave you with this story.....

All of my sisters are married. They all have kids. I am often teased about it....even more so because there's not even a boy in the picture for me right now. No big deal, I get over it, I move on. However, sometimes it is more obvious at events, such as family vacations, where all my sisters pose for pretty pictures with their husbands infront of a serene background. Last week in Colorado, all in all, there were 9 individual pictures of couples taken at one point in the trip. Let me just say my dad is amazing. I didn't even really care about the pictures.....I'm used to it. But he went above and beyond the call of duty, much like he has been doing all year whenever I have house / living issues I need a man's help with. It was so simple but so sweet. His gesture meant the world to me and it made my day. I love my dad. :)