First of all, I’d like to give a shout out to my hubs. Today
is his birthday. Woot Woot! J
(Last year, I wrote a post with my 30 favorite things about him.)
I’d add to that list how grateful I am that he’s always
willing to go with me to my conferences. I’ve presented at a few academic
conferences over the years, and he hasn’t missed a single one. St. Louis.
Pittsburgh. San Antonio. Santa Fe. We’ve been to some fun places.
This last week, he went with me to Portland, where I presented
at the ATTW conference.
We made a trip of it (more on that Monday—so stay tuned) and
took a few vacation days before the conference to enjoy ourselves on the West
Coast.
As the day of my conference approached, I started feeling
very anxious. Actually, I’d felt pretty anxious for the weeks leading up to it,
but by the time the actual week arrived, I felt like throwing up just thinking
about it.
I was uncharacteristically nervous.
I don’t know if it was the enemy or my flesh—maybe both, but
my head was full of lies. This conference is small and an elite group of
presenters. They only accepted 26% of the proposals this year (and I’ve been on
the 74% side three times).
I don’t say that to toot my own horn; I say that because the
days leading up the conference I started thinking, “Man, I’m a fraud. I don’t
belong on that panel. My research isn’t good enough, isn’t serious enough. I’m
not prepared. I’m not enough.”
And on and on and on, to the point where I was physically
sick the day before the conference.
That night I finally told Howell all the lies I felt inside.
Do you know how much power comes from speaking your fears out loud?
He encouraged me and prayed for me that night, and
immediately, the Lord showed me something really cool.
We’d been on our trip for four days at that point, and God
started showing me how He’d taken care of us at every little moment along the
way.
Our flights were on time.
Our rental car was perfect, which was essential for the 1500
miles we were going to put on it.
He’d kept our car safe and secure while we’d been out the
first day (before we checked into the hotel). For some reason, I kept imagining
that someone was going to break into our car and steal my laptop and notes
while we sat at a restaurant, and I’d have nothing for the conference.
He’d led us to stay in Brookings, Oregon, instead of
Crescent City. Brookings turned out to be MUCH nicer, but we didn’t know that
til we were driving through Crescent City.
He’d led us to choose the perfect road to Crater Lake, and
He’d led us on the perfect week. We later learned that two other roads into the
park were closed because of snow, and if we’d have come the week before, we
probably wouldn’t have made it because of all the snow they had. But they’d
cleared our road, and although we considered taking the other route, we chose
the road, by God’s grace, that was open.
He just kept giving me example after example—really recent
examples—of how big and how powerful He is.
My conference presentation turned out to be just fine—and when
I stopped stressing, I was able to enjoy the experience. By the end of the
trip, we had even more cool stories like that!
But I loved that He reminded me, just when I need it:
He takes care of us.
He goes before us.
He’s always with us.
If you feel afraid, if you feel like you’re not enough, if
you feel like you’re lacking, I pray that today you’ll be encouraged to see how
big your God is.
He fights for you.
He stands with you.
He fills you with all the grace and power and confidence you
need.
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