The Spa at Redeemed Womens Conference - Guest Post by Deb Abshier

Deb Abshier does a phenomenal job coordinating and running the spa at Women's Conference each year. She is a wonderful woman of God and a personal blessing to me. She spends Friday's each year at conference making sure as many women as possible get rejuvenated in body to go along with the rejuvenation of the spirit that the weekend holds. As you will read momentarily, sometimes the rejuvenation of the spirit occurs while being pampered in body!!

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The day started with ladies arriving and unloading their vehicles, As they passed through the lobby, now spa they grew excited. Most returned to sign up for at least one massage. We had several professional ladies who volunteered their time only receiving tips in exchange. Once everyone was in the same mind of keeping a quiet and calm atmosphere, the entire day went very smoothly.

Foot washing/prayer with missionary Melodie Joice

We also had foot washing that had the option of hand massage as well. At first the foot washing was not as popular as the massages, and lacked participants. There came a turning point as Melodie Joice stepped in to give massages. I remember thinking how cool it was that she would step up to give a break and wash feet for strangers.

Melodie is a missionary to Tanzania who is itenerating this year. She teaches people about childrens' ministry. She is also a sweet hearted woman of God. Another little known fact is that her journal is pictures. She carries a camera and the pictures she takes become her journal entries.

So all the ladies continued their massages without interruption as Melodie simply stepped into the position. It was not too long before our attention was drawn to the back wall where the foot washing station was. The lady receiving the wash was also receiving a touch from the Holy Spirit. As she continued to minister to the lady we could feel the presence of God fill the room. Everyone was pleased and welcomed His presence. This continued until time to close the spa. Needless to say the foot wash line filled up too.

The spa is a treat, each year ladies are drawn into the dorm lobby for a professional massage and always say the atmosphere is peaceful and inviting. We regularly have missionaries present at Womens Conference. Last year we were blessed in the spa with the warm heart and laughter of U.S. Missionary Betty Holyfield. Several ladies were touched by here conversation and encouragement, I was one of them. For me, the missionaries that come to our Womens Conference are a huge benefit, to them and us. Missionaries are a treasure we all can support financially yes, but also with prayer. Both types of support are essential.

God likes humility, obedience and willingness to just give of what we have, doing just what He directs. The ladies who do the massages say they are blessed each year as just as much as the ones receiving the massages and it is obvious as i watch the interaction in the spa. This year we all witnessed God visit tangibly and minister to these ladies who opened to Him. Both the giver and recipient. It was a joy to be a part of the spa this year.

Redeemed Conference - L.I.F.E.

A few days before the beginning of the Redeemed Fall Conference, I received a random text message from Angelia Carpenter, the District Women’s Director for the Arkansas Assemblies of God. She was looking for a vinyl chair and said, “If you see one anywhere, let me know”. That made me curious, so I asked her what she needed it for. She told me she had this idea to redeem a chair for conference and then auction it off to raise some money for L.I.F.E.

That is all I needed to know. I didn’t have one or know of one, but there were a few resale shops close by, so I decided to go look for her. The first place I went to, there was this chair. The only chair in the place and it was only $8.00. I sent her a picture and picked it up for her.

Have you ever heard the saying “duct tape can fix anything”? Well, duct tape can redeem things too!!

We put the mat from the chair out and had anyone who wanted to put a piece of duct tape on the chair. Collectively, ladies at conference turned this plane jane chair into a redeemed work of art!

The chair was auctioned off and we raised money for missions! What a fun way to raise some mission’s money. That is one of the things I have picked up on since I’ve been around Angelia and some of the other ladies that work with her. I am always hearing someone say something like, “we could do (insert a million different ideas here) and raise money for missions”. I love it! I truly wish I had more opportunities to say that myself. Maybe I need to start looking for them.

If you are interested in learning more about L.I.F.E. please visit the Arkansas Women’s Department website.

Redeemed Conference - Redemption Crosses

“Redemption is Jesus taking the pieces of my life, the beautiful and the broken, to create something of worth for His Glory.”

One of the activities available at conference was making a Redemption Cross. This project is truly a depiction of redemption. The idea is that we take the pieces of cloth (the pieces of our lives) and place them on the cross. When we have finished the project, we end up with a patchwork cross that is not only a great decoration to hang or put on a shelf, but it is a representation of redemption in our lives.

Earlier in the year this was done at the women’s leadership training as well as at a women’s luncheon at our church. Ladies were encouraged as they laid their pieces on the cross to pray for a specific thing in their life that needed to be redeemed. They were encouraged to let that piece represent something that they were going to lay on the cross for Jesus to redeem. What a healing time for some of the ladies who participated in that!

There was a group of ladies that came in during conference to make a cross together as a group. There was a man in their church that was going through a lot in life it sounded like. They had decided to make a cross to take back to him. They were praying over their pieces and that cross while they were making it. I wish I knew what church it was and how the man reacted when he received it from them.

On to the craftiness!!

Here is how you can make your own Redemption Cross.

Materials:
1 wooden cross (you can either make your own or buy one)
Various Material Scraps/Pieces (cut to size)
Glue (Mod Podge is the best, but can get expensive. If you don’t want to use Mod Podge, you can mix Elmer’s glue and water half and half)
Sponge Brush for spreading the glue

Instructions:
The instructions are pretty simple. You take a piece of material and spread the glue mixture on the back. Place it where you want it on the cross. For best results, stretch and flatten the material so that it is smooth and there are no bubbles or bumps in the piece. Continue doing this until you cover the entire cross.

If you are using Mod Podge, after it is finished and dry, you may want to use a sealer finish to seal the edges well. If you are using the glue mixture, we found during conference, you really had to use a lot. You almost had to soak the material for it to stick.

The cross that I made at conference with the glue mixture turned out pretty cute, but after it dried there were quite a few air bubbles that weren’t there when it was wet, so if you can spare it, I would definitely recommend using Mod Podge!

Here are some pictures from the craft room at conference.

Redeemed Conference - Redeeming our Relationships

The message given by Kerry Clarensau during the Saturday morning service at conference was another one that hit me between the eyes.

Because we are human, we at times will make relationship mistakes. I am not only referring to a relationship with your better half, but even relationships with friends and acquaintances can be affected by our human tendencies and emotions.

Matthew 22:34-40 talks about the greatest commandment given by Jesus. It is the most important objective in life, to love God and love others.

But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”

Jesus said to him, “‘you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Jesus himself (red letter) said that loving God and loving others are the two most important commandments.

In my world, that means I need to slow down and reprioritize some things. It means that when I have laundry piled up and dishes in the sink and fourth grade homework that all need to be done at the same time, it is more important for me to show love to my husband and my son than it is for me to finish everything that needs to be done. My tendency is to get stressed and be impatient with my son when we are working on homework or try and do three things at once and not give him the attention that he needs to be successful at finishing his tasks.

In my world, it means that with a limited number of hours in the day, I need to make sure that even if something else gets neglected, spending time with Jesus doesn’t.

I’m a quote person so I love when I hear people say things that I can quote. One of the things Kerry said more than once over the course of the weekend was, “We need to be Jesus with skin on”. What a great visual. We need to be showing the love of Jesus to others through our words and actions. Jesus isn’t on earth anymore to stand beside someone, but you are and I am. We can make a difference in other people’s lives by being Jesus with skin on.

Steps to redeeming your relationships:

1. Take full responsibility for yourself (Galatians 5:13-26)
2. Choose mercy over harsh judgment
3. Learn from people with more experience and then pay it forward
4. Handle conflict with grace
• We can overlook an offense in love
• If we need to confront someone we need to do it in love
5.  Look for ways to encourage other people.

The Bible talks about the proper way to handle conflict. If we have an issue with someone, we are supposed to take that issue directly to the person. The reason for this is not to point out their faults, but to restore the relationship.

These principles apply to any relationship, but I’m going to take just a minute to insert something here that weighs on my heart constantly. The divorce rate in America is incredibly high and last I saw there isn’t much difference in the numbers between those inside and outside of the church. Within my immediate circle of influence I can count on one hand the number of people who are still married to their first spouse. This is due to varying circumstances and what I am getting ready to say doesn’t apply in every single situation, however, I feel the need to say it and I apologize if it sounds harsh.

While there are some acceptable reasons for divorcing someone, many times in life, people get a divorce for ridiculous reasons. Or, even if the reason may seem legitimate, they do nothing to work on their relationship before divorcing. They simply take the easy way out and sign the papers.

This is not God’s plan for marriage. It isn’t His plan for you. The pain of divorce is real. The pain it causes your children is real. The scars it can leave behind are real. If you could stick it out and go through the Redeeming process that God can take you through, wouldn’t you rather do that. Wouldn’t you rather look back on your life and say, “God saw us through and our family is still intact”? Instead of looking back and saying, “we aren’t together as a family anymore because I was just tired of fighting”. Or, “we aren’t together as a family anymore because my needs weren’t being met so I just decided to leave.”

I have personally seen families torn apart, and I have personally seen God Redeem Marriages. I can tell you from my experience, if you are struggling in your marriage, take it to God. Ask Him to Redeem it. If you are willing to stick it out and willing for God to ask you to make some changes (even if you think you are the one that is right), I believe that He will Redeem your marriage. Commit yourself and your family to Him and see what He can do. It won’t happen overnight, but I have seen it happen and I know that He can do it. Let Him Redeem your relationship.

More quotes from Kerry:
“When you fixate on something you can’t change, satan is thrilled because you are neglecting the thing you can change, YOU”

“Forgiveness isn’t a feeling. Forgiveness is a behavior. Unforgiveness ties us to the pain of what has happened.”

“You can’t feel your way into right behavior, but you can behave yourself into right feelings.”

“Love is the only thing that has ever changed people.”

Redeemed Conference - Redeeming our Perspective

Friday night’s service was an incredibly powerful service. The presence of the Lord was there from the beginning and never left. From the first utterance of sound to the last person leaving the auditorium, you knew you were in the presence of the Lord.

So many wonderful things happened even before Kerry began to speak. Anointed worship, tongues with interpretations, encouragement to keep trusting God and to keep walking in His redemption.

Kerry’s message Friday night was “Redeeming our Perspective”. We all have times when we let life get in the way of our perspective. I am guilty of that quite often actually and I was really glad that this was what she was speaking on.

Isaiah 43:1 says, “But now, thus says the LORD, who created you, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel: Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine.”

In this verse the Lord is claiming you! You are His! He created you, redeemed you, and called you by your name. He knows you and He loves you!

Psalm 139:16-17 says, “Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them. How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them!”

In these verses we are reminded that God knew you before you were even conceived. He wrote the days of your being in his book before you even existed. He thinks precious and good thoughts about you.

These verses are a great place to start considering what our perspective should be. For me personally, but I think for women in general, we don’t give ourselves enough credit. We don’t think we are pretty enough, or good enough, or talented enough in life. We put ourselves down and we don’t feel worthy. I am the world’s worst at taking a compliment. When other people give me a compliment, my first reaction is, “yeah right”. But in these verses, God is complimenting me. He is complimenting you. He is telling you that you are worth something to Him. He is telling you that you are valuable to Him.

In Kerry’s book and in her message, she gave strategies for redeeming our perspective.

1. Allow God to define you. 
• Don’t compare yourself to others.
2. Find your security in God. 
• If I am dependent on Him, He gives me what I need moment by moment.
3. Accept your limitations. 
• There are certain non-negotiable limitations in life. We all need sleep, food, and there are only 24 hours in a day. 
• Every season of life has different limitations. 
• Live graciously within your limitations.
4. Stop longing for the ideal.
5. Embrace God’s purpose for your life

All of these things speak to me directly. I have struggled my entire life with feeling inadequate as I mentioned above. Never feeling like I was enough. But by God’s definition, I am exactly who I need to be, created by Him for Him and greatly loved.

Accepting limitations is something I also struggle with, but I think a lot of women struggle with that one too. We want to be the best and do it all. We weren’t made to do it all. At some point, we will reach our limit. We will reach a breaking point. We need to understand our limits and live within them.

Stop longing for the ideal. This one hit me square between the eyes. There are things in my life that I have struggled with and part of the struggle has been me wanting life to be a certain way. Life is not always ideal, but that doesn’t mean it is always bad.

This can apply in many ways, but here is an example. When I decided to go back to college after I was married and had a child, I couldn’t do everything by myself. My husband and my son had to pitch in around the house. We started teaching our son to fold towels. At first, I would let him fold them, but I would come back behind him and redo them. Now, this didn’t save me any time. It didn’t solve my dilemma of needing help getting things done. If I was just going to come back behind him and redo them, it didn’t do any good to ask him to do it to start with.

At some point, I realized that when he folded the towels, they didn’t sit pretty on the shelf, but they were clean and “folded” and put away. So, I finally let that go. As he got older and folded more towels, they started looking better. They still aren’t the way I fold them when he does them, but still, they are clean, folded, and put away.

The towels on the shelf don’t have to be perfect. The clothes in the drawers and hanging in the closet don’t have to be perfect. This is a topic for an entirely different post, but your spouse doesn’t have to be perfect! Live in reality and accept the fact that life will not be perfect. It is ok that it isn’t, because we serve a perfect God!

Embrace God’s purpose for your life. God has a plan and a purpose for everyone in life. Whatever that is embrace it head on and live it with everything that is in you.

I intend to continue to work on having a redeemed perspective. I want to continue to work on viewing myself the way God does and not letting the enemy convince me that I’m anything less. I pray the same for each of you.

Redeemed Conference – Redeeming our Sexuality

The 2013 Women’s Conference challenged me in many ways. One of the main ways it challenged me was through the workshop and messages presented by Kerry Clarensau, National Women’s Department Director for the Assemblies of God. Because of how much I want to say, I am going to post about the workshop and services separately.

The first thing on the workshop agenda was Kerry’s workshop on “Redeeming our Sexuality”. Before I say much more about this, let me just say that I read Kerry’s book prior to conference. I got to this chapter in the book and before I read it, I didn’t really expect it to apply to me. Boy was I wrong. There were things in this chapter of her book that absolutely applied to me and some of them were things that I hadn’t even considered before.

One of the things that Kerry said during this workshop was “God doesn’t want His daughters to carry around the baggage of sexual sin”. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the baggage is from you choosing to live in sexual sin. This could also apply to you if you are the victim of someone else’s sexual sin. These things, whether brought on ourselves or put on us by others are not a part of God’s plan for our lives and He wants us to live in freedom from them. He doesn’t want them to hold us back and keep us down.

When Kerry was talking about this, just her use of the phrase “God doesn’t want His daughters” immediately caught my attention. I forget entirely too quickly that I am God’s daughter. I go through life and I forget to view myself that way. This changes my perspective on myself. It changes the way I view myself. It drastically improves my self-worth and my self-esteem for me to view myself as God’s daughter. If you are saved and you haven’t thought about yourself from that perspective lately, try it!

Another thing that really got my attention was when Kerry said, “The world is really loud about sexual things, the Church needs to be just as loud.” I will admit, that this blog post in and of itself is a stretch for me. To be honest, I’m stretching myself to even write this post. The world has twisted the idea of sex to the point that it is uncomfortable for many people to even talk about (it is me). However, Kerry is right! Because the world is so loud about it, and because what they tell everyone is so wrong and full of lies, we need to be just as loud in speaking the truth.

Kerry shared five ways to set healthy boundaries around your sexuality.

1. Guard Your Heart
2. Avoid inappropriate conversations with your friends
3. Don’t let the flame die
4. Guard your heart from other men (never have alone conversation with someone of the opposite sex)
5. Be respectful of men. (The respect we show other people is not a reflection of the other person’s worthiness; it is a reflection of our character.

You can find out more in Kerry’s book “Redeemed: Embracing a Transformed Life”.

Redeemed Conference - Worship

Last week’s “Wordless Wednesday” post (pictured to the left) was a photo that was taken during worship at the 2013 Arkansas Assemblies of God Women’sFall Conference. What a fantastic conference, with a fantastic theme, and fantastic leadership! The theme for this year’s conference was “Redeemed” and it was a weekend of redemption for many women.

As far as the leadership, I believe this photo says it all. Angelia Carpenter (pictured in the front, center of the crowd), District Women’s Director, leads the way not only in what she says from the podium, but also by example. She is a woman of impeccable character, she is my friend, and she is the person whose example I am proud to follow.

Worship during the conference was led by Leah Smith from Beebe Open Arms Assembly of God. This worship team was anointed!! The presence of God was so powerful during both services and it was evident from the very first song to the very last.

If you get the opportunity sometime, you should attend one of these conferences. There is something about several hundred women gathering together to openly worship the Lord that is unexplainable. Matthew 18:20 says, “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” This is a promise that is multiplied by several hundred at these conferences.

I will continue to share more about this conference, but for now, here are some more photos of the worship that took place!