Time out for Women

I had the opportunity to go to Time out for Women in Oklahoma City yesterday and today.  I debated over going.  I wasn't sure I wanted to go.  I had gone in the past with a great group of friends and we stayed at a hotel overnight and went out to dinner and had a great time.  For several different reasons, most of my friends were not going to be going today, and I wasn't sure I wanted to go by myself.  I went ahead and bought tickets, but really wasn't very enthusiastic about it. 
Rich left to go on a buisness trip today and I even contemplated backing out and giving my tickets to someone else and not going.

I'm so glad I didn't.  I'm so glad that I went.  I needed to be there.  I needed to feel that spirit, and I needed to hear what they shared in both songs and talks.

I took along my little journal and took notes.  Anything that I thought of while the presenters were talking.  At the end of today I counted the pages in my journal and I filled 16 pages with notes.  16 pages of thoughts of what I need to focus on in my life.  Of thoughts of how I may be out of focus in some area's and other area's that I can allow myself to go out of focus on and not worry about as much.  I don't think I realized how much I needed to be there, until I counted those pages of notes. 

I drove down alone (I wanted to make sure if I had to go home early I wasn't making someone else leave early) and I sat with some friends that came as well.  Unlike the last time I went- when it was truly a bonding friendship time- this time it was a wonderful personal time for me to really focus on and reflect on things that I needed to gain from the presenters and things that I needed to hear.


I was fed spiritually much more than I thought I would be, and more than I thought I needed... and physically more than I needed as well- the chocolate and toffee covered peanuts I grabbed for a snack were too good!

Many times I've thought of life as a roller coaster.  Going up and down the hills and screaming throughout.  I think I'd like to retire that thought in my mind and think of it more as waves in the ocean.  Something drops into our lives and it causes a ripple.  Sometimes the ripple gradually spreads out and stops and is absorbed into the water with little change.  Other things drop into the water and cause a much bigger splash.  Waves start up- first small and gentle, and can build at times into ferocious waves that threated to drown things.  But after the waves crash down on the beaches, the undertow takes the water back out to sea and it calms down again until the next disturbance happens.  Life keeps going.  I just have to be like the water in the sea and ride through the waves, pull myself together after they come crashing down on the beach and continue on and try and absorb the impacts that I can absorb.