What is IF:?

My sister Jenn loves her some social media (and that's an understatement). Because of this, she is often in the know about a lot of things that I am completely unaware of. Sometimes this is a good thing, sometimes it's not.

For months, maybe longer she had been so excited and talking a lot about this IF: Gathering conference she heard about on social media. Again, I had no idea what she was talking about. And to be honest, I really didn't like or understand the title of "IF". The funny thing is/was, even those that knew a lot about the conference didn't actually know that much. There weren't many details going out other than the fact that there would be this big conference with big Christian speakers (none that I had heard of) and anyone that heard about it wanted to be there. It was being held in Austin, TX this past weekend.

When tickets went on sale the conference sold out in minutes (1200 tickets to be exact) and Jenn was very disappointed. Then she heard about their plan to stream the conference live so that people all over the country could have IF: local gatherings and they could be a part of the conference too. It didn't take Jenn long to decide that Northern Colorado had to be a part of this. She felt a strong urge that God was asking her to be the one to lead and organize the local event for and with us.

When she asked who would help her plan, I agreed not knowing at all what I was even helping with. I just jumped on the bandwagon because I'm her sister and that's what we do. We help with things like this. ;)

All I knew was that I've been needing something like this. I didn't care what the topic was, because let's be honest, I didn't understand it. I've just been in a place of feeling spiritually dry and thirsty. Due to my busy schedule as a stay at home mom of 3 young ones, spending days and weeks inside avoiding the freezing cold and nursing sick little ones back to health, having little to no time to myself for bible studies, and mostly due to being without a church home at the moment (another post for another time), I needed this.

So, back in the fall Jenn put together a group of 6 women to plan for this IF: thing. I don't want to get into the details of the planning and the having to re-think and re-plan many things because this post would become a novel, but I just want to talk now about how it all actually impacted me this past weekend.

It.was... I actually don't have one word. It was moving, awesome, incredible, beautiful. It was just what I needed. The group ended up being much smaller than we originally thought or hoped, but in the end, I thought it was perfect. I don't think it was a coincidence that we had the perfect number of seats at our tables. The group was the perfect size. It was just enough to feel like we had a good turn out and just small enough to really be able to open up to one another.

I don't know what I loved more, the amazing speakers (I'll get to them), or the discussions at the table. We discussed deep and honest things with each other like our biggest fears, dreams, and how God has worked and is currently working in our lives. We talked about what it would look like if the church was unified, in every way.

We had a little help on how to get these conversations going with the IF: conversation cards. ;)

When it was all over we went from being complete strangers (some of us) to being great friends.

As for the speakers, all I can say is WOW. In my personal life I've only read and heard mostly from Beth Moore and maybe a handful of others. Probably because my mom is a HUGE Beth Moore fan. ;) I had no idea there were so many more amazing speakers out there, and that so many of them were in our age group (30 somethings). They each spoke to me in a new, fresh way and some even had me tearing up as I felt like God was speaking directly to me through them.

I have a handful of new favorites now and I hope to do their Bible studies in the future. Here's some of my new favorites:

Christine Caine

http://www.christinecaine.com/

Rebekah Lyons

http://rebekahlyons.com/

And Jen Hatmaker

http://jenhatmaker.com/

And although these two weren't "speakers" per say, I really enjoyed the interviews/ testimonies of Melinda Doolittle and Kristin Armstrong. 

To be perfectly honest, I'm still not crazy about the title "IF". BUT, it was an incredible weekend! I feel like it started a new spark for me in my walk of faith. I can't wait for the next gathering!

Monday Miscellaneous

Once again I find that I have gone far too long in between blog posts. What can I say? It's summer and we've been crazy busy!

First of all, I have to mention that today Caleb and I are celebrating our 7th wedding anniversary! Yay us!! I won't say that our marriage is perfect. In fact, in some ways this was a growing/ stretching year for us. Adding Ethan to the family brought on some stress (and with that some fighting). However, I can honestly say that I love Caleb more today than I did 7 years ago. He is still my best friend and the person that I tell everything too. I would marry him again in a second! And to be honest, we've had a lot of fun making up for all of those little fights. ;) We are going to our favorite restaurant, The Melting Pot tonight and I can't wait!

This past weekend I had a wonderful time going with my Saturday morning bible study group (and even some more friends and family) to a Beth Moore conference in Colorado Springs. We had a group of about 14 women. Honestly, I hesitated to go this year and I am SO glad I went! It was an amazing time! The conference almost didn't happen due to the fire that was burning in Colorado Springs. Thankfully, the decision was made to still have the conference and God took full advantage of that time. I think many people heard the Holy Spirit through Beth's words.

Of course I had fun enjoying great worship and some girl time, but more than that I was really spiritually refreshed and I heard God speak to me about several things going on in my life.

The overall theme was about finishing the work God has laid out for us. Although the overall theme didn't hit me personally, some of her key points did.

One of the things she talked about was about new beginnings and finishes to certain seasons in our lives. She talked more about the end (or finish) of tough seasons. This really resonated with me. Lately my faith has been a little ho-hum. I'm not struggling on a serious level at all, I just haven't felt God's presence as strongly as I usually do. I've spent countless hours praying for some friends and family that are struggling with various things, and I have yet to see any of these prayers answered. I'm not angry or upset but I have found myself asking God where he is in these situations. This past weekend I really sensed that God was and is near to not only me, but that he's also very much in control of each of these situations I've been praying for. I feel like my season of feeling spiritually dry is over. I also very clearly heard God tell me that these tough seasons for those I love are coming to an end too. Very cool!

Another key point she made was that "You're not completing if you're competing". Ouch! I won't go into too much detail about this because you never know who's reading, but I was seriously convicted on this one! For months I have been subconsciously competing with another believer. God spoke clearly to me on this one and basically told me to cut it out and deal with it. Beth even went a step further and challenged us to not only stop competing with our brothers and sisters in Christ, but to cheer them on. This won't always be easy, but I'm going to work on this.

It was a wonderful weekend and I am SO glad I went! Here's a few photos from the weekend that I stole from my friend Becky.

Speaking of growing in my faith, I don't know if I mentioned this on the blog or not yet, but Caleb and I recently left the church that we both grew up in to find a church closer to our home and community. The decision was very bittersweet as we love the church we left very much. We continue to love this church and the people in it.

But, that being said, we are beginning to get attached to our new church and we are loving it! The sermon on Sunday was SO good! I'm excited to see what God has in store for us as a family and also as individuals here.

These next week are going to be fun and full. We have lots of people and places to visit on the 4th, both of our moms celebrate their birthdays this week, and then the countdown will begin for my cousin's wedding. I'm very excited!

Also, we just got some professional photos back from our trip to San Diego. My sister-in-law Amanda has a friend named Andrew Ruiz that is a professional photographer and lives in SD. He did a great job! I can't wait to share more but here's just a few of my favorites:

The Bachelorette

Did you think I was going to talk about the show? Ha! I have admitted before that watching The Bachelor and The Bachelorette is one of my guilty pleasures.

But, that's not what (or who) this post is about.

My dear sister Allison is getting married in just 6 short days (it's coming up so quickly now). Isn't she gorgeous?!



Both Jenn and Courtney (the other sisters) have posted about how this wedding is somehow different. Somehow bittersweet. It's getting all of us choked up for many reasons.

First of all, Alli is the last sister to get married. It's like closing the final chapter to our childhood. It's made all of us very nostalgic lately. There have been many conversations in recent weeks talking about our childhood. The things that made us laugh, the hard times, the many ways we saw God's hand working in our lives, both individually and as a family.

That brings me to the second reason this wedding is a little more emotional than the previous ones. It's a long story and I'll really try to summarize it for you. Alli became anorexic in her early teens. She was very sick, in and out of hospitals and she got down to a scary 58 pounds at one point. We thought we were going to lose her.

Although it sounds strange, her sickness saved our family. After it was obvious that the hospitalizations weren't doing anything for Alli and her eating disorder, she was sent to Remuda Ranch, an inpatient center that specializes in eating disorders out of state. In order for Alli to be fully recovered and free to return home, a week of family counseling was required.

It was one of the most intense, hardest weeks of our lives. We cried. A lot. We watched our Dad break down many times. Our parents marriage was saved because of that week of counseling too. SOOO much healing came from that week.

And after a couple long months of being at Remuda Ranch, Alli was healed. For good!

Now, 13 years later, Alli is living a happy and healthy life. And praise God, she's getting married! We are all SO thrilled for her and her fiance Brian.

Alli's bachelorette party was last night and we had a wonderful time! We started out at a martini bar in Old Town. At first it was just the 4 sisters and our very close friend Annie who we often call our 5th sister. Annie lived in our neighborhood and grew up with us. She was always with us. :)







After the martini bar, we walked to my favorite restaurant of all time and had dinner at The Melting Pot. I would say that was the best part of the night. ;-)



We played a fun game where we each had to buy Alli some panties and she had to guess who bought which one. She did amazingly well.



We were joined at dinner with 3 of Alli's close friends. There was 8 of us total. At first I thought that sounded like a really small bachelorette party, but it turned out to be the perfect number. We were really able to have great conversations because we all fit perfectly around the table.





We talked and laughed a lot. It really was the perfect bachelorette party.



I'm so glad Alli had such a great night honoring her. I praise God that Alli is where she is today and that he brought Brian into her life. I just know her wedding is going to be so beautiful and sentimental. I think there will be plenty of tears shed on Saturday. The good kind. :)