STORY Conference!

We are walking out the door, here’s the story behind STORY…

It’s hard to put into words the amount of excitement this trip has produced in me up to this point. I have to say, STORYChicago is not a Natalie idea it’s solely the Lord’s.

Come with me back to July. It was a regular Thursday. I had been in Donalsonville for what felt like 10 years on that day. The afternoon got better as I drove on the interstate back home into Baton Rouge. It’s as if all the load of the day was leaving the body the further I drove. It was a reflective ride; no telephone chats, loud music or other distractions from my thoughts. I am sure I tried to figure out my day in that 45 minutes, my life, all it’s bits and pieces and probably my lack of accomplishment pertaining to my job for that season. The longer I drove the deeper I thought.

I was meeting three friends for dinner that night. My dear friend, Kristin had begged for us to dine with two other friends of ours. The couple, Dave and Jean was an older couple from our church. They were the best couple to be around. They were passionate about missions and pros at being on the field. Jean had more wit that  The combination of the couple’s personalities was enough to keep any person engaged for days! It was going to be a fine night and a memorable one come to find out.

I was early by about ten minutes and I walked into the restaurant to wait. As I bent down to sit on the bench I caught eyes with a familiar, welcoming face. It was our Pastor. He always seemed to have a crew around so seeing that it was just he and his son, Dylan, I immediately knew approaching him would be an ease. His table was in the middle of the restaurant and the way he looked at me I could tell he was open for an interruption. My heart probably did several things in that moment and all of me was smiling.

He said, “how are you doing?’ I told him I was well and told him I was meeting Dave and Jean. He listened and went quickly to the next question. “What cha doing these days”? I told him that I was in Donaldsonville and that I was on the grant with Church United till Sept 2010. He listened and then said, “so what are you really passionate about”. He was digging and I was enjoying the search. I told him that of course I was crazy about missions but I told him namely that the Lord had been putting it on my heart lately to tell people’s stories.

I gave him the briefest version I could of the “project” that I felt that the Lord had put on my heart… StoryforHisGLORY… that entailed the telling of peoples’ stories to show the hand of God in the everyday lives of people all around us. To show how God is still moving and mightily at that, from the depths of pain to the doorsteps of hope. And the 2^nd part, “project stories”, that would shed light on people’s pain in hopes to raise funds to fix an immediate, dire need.

He listened and the excitement spilled out like a dam broke from my mouth. He said, “That’s funny, I was just talking about telling the stories of our church more today and he followed it up saying, you need to meet up with my friend, Ben”. He went on to tell me that Ben was putting on a conference that pertained to “Story”…. I almost screamed as he finished his thought saying, “the Story Conference in Chicago”! He was like yeah, when is that. I said, “October 28 and 29^th”… I told him how I had emailed another Pastor at the church to find out if anyone from HPC was going and was told, unfortunately no.

He looked at me and said, “you email me Monday and we are going to send you up there to represent HPC”…

I about fell over.

He just kept looking at me and nodding. I wanted to jump, dance, yell… parade around the restaurant chanting something like, “YOU ARE KIDDING ME…. I AM GOING TO STORY”…. I think he could tell by the size of my eyes tripling that what was happening in my heart was more than just a good feeling.

I almost clicked the “register” button for the conference a week prior to this conversation but the Lord wouldn’t give me the peace to press “Buy Tickets”. I wandered why until that moment and now I was wandering “why me”? How could He love me this much?

I know this time in Chicago for the next 4 days will be a time in my life that I will call “pivotal”. I had a thought the other day when I was twittering. I said, “Story09 Conference, I will never be the same”. And I know at this point I won’t.

See the story has already begun to be written. I am expecting God to use this time to speak to me very precisely about the project that has been bouncing around in my head and heart since May 2009. Please pray with me as this story unfolds.

I know that it is prayer alone that makes things happen.

Repeat after me… “Lord SPEAK TO NATALIE AT STORY, speak SO clearly that she will NOT hesitate about what you have spoken to her. Open doors and grant her only the favor that her Heavenly Father could grant. And of course give her MORE than she can ask, think or imagine.”

IN JESUS’ NAME!