Have you ever had a “compulsion” to do something, didn‘t do it, then wondered what you missed? 

I have–too often, I’m afraid–and at the Blissdom Conference I had the delight of finding out exactly what I’ve missed, not once, but twice!

A few weeks prior to the conference, I invited Blissdom attendees to join me for prayer and coffee; I thought about doing this for Blissdom ’08 and Blissdom ’09, but never followed through.  We were there to experience all things BLAWG, for cryin’ out loud, NOT to get our Jesus on! 

The funny thing is, I hoped I wouldn’t be ALONE thought maybe five or six women might sign up; scheduled at 7:30 a.m. on Day 3 of a blog conference, experience tells me an early morning optional “session” ain’t gonna be in high demand.

I was wrong:  70 people linked their intent to come!

I was a leetle freaked out–

I didn’t have a room.

I certainly didn’t have coffee for 70.

And somewhere along the way people were calling it a prayer breakfast, AND SWEET MERCY I DIDN’T THINK THIS WAS A CASE WHERE WE’D HAVE ANOTHER MIRACLE OF FISHES & LOAVES, ESPECIALLY WHEN THERE WERE NO FISHES OR LOAVES TO BEGIN WITH!  Amen?!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Can I tell you another part to the story? 

With advance intention, I determined our time together was to be US praying, not just me leading a devotion and me praying, or a group of women sharing their requests.  Sometimes you can share at the expense of prayer (can I get a witness?!). 

Though I had no formal presentation planned, I knew how I was impressed to lead our gathering–to share my heart for why I wanted to pray with conference ladies and to remind these amazing ladies who they are in Christ:

• From 1 Peter 2:9, we’re all daughters of the King which means we’re princesses!  ~ “….you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.”
• From Ephesians 1:4-8, we’re chosen, loved, adopted, redeemed, forgiven, holy ~ “For he chose us in him
  before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.
  In love he predestined us to be adopted as his
  sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption
  through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the
  riches of God’s grace that
  he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.”

Also, I wanted to make a little surcie for all the ladies who attended; as a thank you for coming and as a token of remembrance.  Because I’m a hand-stamper, I decided to make bookmarks with the above verses on them; because I make things complicated, I designed them with multiple layers, ribbon, and a bunch of cutting, punching and pasting. 

Allowing for extras, what I didn’t do was allow enough time to complete 100 projects!  

Needing an army, I enlisted the help of a group of nineth grade girls during their homeroom, and left them with assembling the parts.  They brought them to me in a bag, completed.  I was thrilled.

Until I got the bookmarks home.

Pouring them out of the bag in order to add ribbon and one last hand-stamped do-dah, it was only then I realized the girls had used Elmer’s glue (not just my craft glue) and the majority of the bookmarks were stuck together, or at a minimum, warped and smeared with excess glue!  

I was crushed and now….

…out of time.

{to be continued :)….}