Sister to Sister: Convention Exhaustion

This is how we all felt…a combination between delirium and utter exhaustion. I think Ezra was just the only one who was okay with expressing it in public. (It would probably be a better world if we were all without guile…completely honest… like Ezra is at eighteen months old.)

In fact, hundreds of children did incredible things over the weekend and in preparation for the Lads to Leaders convention. It’s pretty special to see teenagers getting extremely excited about studying the role of women in the New Testament church. It’s exhilarating to watch early elementary aged kids answering questions about the details of the book of Acts. To see a teen girl in her last year of Lads competition having difficulty finishing her speech about being the Proverbs 31 woman simply because it’s so emotional to sum up life goals as she steps away from childhood and into the “real world” where there will be such pressure from the devil to step away from those goals…well, that made me summarize my own goals and think about whether or not I’m being true to them.

The convention is over. I could not have physically survived another day of such intense  fellowship and overpacked scheduling. But the effects will linger. I think they will linger into eternity. We counted about 10,000 people in the Nashville convention, one of six conventions nationwide. We could count trophies, ribbons, events, rooms booked and fees paid. But we cannot count the seeds planted in hearts. We will just do our best to keep planting and watering them, though, and let our amazing God give the increase.