Women’s Conference

Dear Momma,

When I was in college, nearly twenty years ago, my friend Kelly invited me to attend a Joyce Meyer’s Women’s conference.  At this conference, I experienced Jesus in a different way than I ever had before.  I saw thousands of women coming together to worship and praise Him.  Seeing women cry and seeing women shout, I just had never in my life, y’all seen something like this before in real life!  I was born and raised in the Catholic church and that was NOT what I grew up experiencing and seeing.  

This experience with the Lord, seeing His Church family praise and worship together, inspired this hunger within me that just wanted to know a completely different side of Jesus and the Holy Spirit that I just had not experienced yet.  

So, over the years, my mom and I began attending the Joyce Meyer Women’s Conferences.  It’s been a pretty amazing tradition that my mom and I have had over the years and I have loved this time with her.  This experience has brought us closer, which I’m so thankful for, especially as a momma myself now. 

Not only did we attend the conference, but we did special things to make the entire weekend a fun getaway experience.  One of our favorite things to do was look up restaurants from Diners Drive In’s and Dives and look around for the best restaurants and make sure that we hit up at least one or two of them.  Traveling somewhere new was pretty life giving.  These are memories that I hold close to my heart, because it’s always just been my mom and me.  Growing up with two brothers and a sister and having a full-time working  momma doing everything she could for all of us and our household, it made it even more special to have my mom all to myself. 

As I continued to grow up, get married, and have children of my own I started to think that I really wanted my girls to sit in this experience.  So, I prayed that they’d one day get the opportunity to and that Joyce would be around for the girls to learn from and listen to.  My mom was all for it!  So, we went.

I prayed my daughter’s eyes would be open to Him in fresh new ways. I prayed they, too, would get the experience to praise and worship him with thousands of other girls and women.

We’ve traveled to Saint Louis, MO, Charleston, SC, and San Antonio, TX for conferences over the years.  The traveling part is so much fun!  While we were in South Carolina, we got to swim in the ocean and explore the Charleston Tea Garden.  In San Antonio, we rode along with River Walk and went to the top of the Tower of the Americas and in Saint Louis, we visited old friends.   We prayed together and cried a little bit together. 

But the heart of these trips was attending the women’s conference.  

So, here are a few things I pray that our daughter’s have spiritual eyes to see when sitting in experiences like this:

• My prayer is that anytime they may be in a situation they may feel isolated or don’t feel like there are many followers around them, that they would always have that picture in their minds of those girls and women, knowing they aren’t alone.  They’re never alone because the Holy Spirit is within them, but I am so thankful my girls have had tangible, physical experiences of seeing thousands of girls and women all over the world who love Jesus, praise Jesus, put their trust in Him first, who were seeking after Him, asking questions about Him and seeing that they are not alone on this journey.  Our Church family is massive!

• My prayer is they continually have people in their lives who can pour into them to help build them up on their spiritual walk.

•   My prayer is they learn the value and blessing of surrounding themselves with other followers of the Lord.  It makes life sweeter.  

• My prayer is my girls will have mentors who can pour into them, and no matter where they may travel to or what plans the Lord has made for them, they will have mentors around them to pour life into them, connecting them back to the Lord.

• My prayer is that my girls see they can praise, worship, and experience Him alone in their rooms, together with a small group on a blanket in the living room, or in a massive stadium and all are powerfully-moving because our Lord is Powerful.

Anytime my daughters have an opportunity to be around someone with such wisdom, someone like Joyce Meyer who has poured her life into the Word, I want the girls to have those experiences.  Even if only one thing is taken away, it’s worth it.  I pray seeds are being planted or watered for their own walks.  

When I experience different people and places, I continue to learn about different aspects of God through those experiences.  When we continue to seek Him, we will find Him.  When we continue to knock, He continues to answer.  When we continue to worship, He responds.  

When it comes to traveling, I love the fact that Jesus is at the heart of these traveling experiences.  Even after a fun weekend in SC or StL, we are centered in the Truth that all good things come from Him.  We’re reminded that the good food we’re eating comes from Him.  The swimming and the ability to swim, comes from Him.  The ability to travel and meet new people comes from Him.  And if all of these amazing blessings were stripped away, we’d still have the most important thing in our lives and that is our relationship with the Lord.  

He is enough.

This is an experience of travel that I’ve been so grateful for that each of my girls have all been able to experience.  They’ve not only been able to experience these weekends with each other, but with their mom and their grandmother.  They have a palpable picture of three generations seeking after Him. 

This visual is priceless. 

This time spent is priceless.

This is a gift of sharing the joy of the faith I pray is passed down for generations to come.

When you think about traveling, do you think about how you’re planning for Jesus on your trips?  Are you thinking about how to intentionally seek Him out?  Is there a regular rhythm or experience you’d like to create with your girl that she’ll remember for the rest of her life? It doesn’t have to be a women’s conference with thousands of people.  You might be thinking, “Holy moly, your girls were 9 and 10 and they were young!  You were taking them to a women’s conference??”  My answer: Yup!

Why? Because my God answers prayers.  

I can tell you that wherever there are women congregating and Jesus is at the center of it, there will be wisdom for young girls to receive and I pray more young girls get to sit in these types of experiences all over the world.  We experience the Holy Spirit as we spend quiet moments with him at home.  Those moments are so very precious.  We don’t need to travel to experience Him.  But, there’s power in the Church worshiping Him together.  That, too, is precious.

I like to remind my girls, and it’s a good reminder for all of us momma’s, that there are parts of the world where something like this isn’t allowed to happen.  There are places in the world where people aren’t allowed to openly worship the name of Jesus, and especially young girls!  This picture of girls and women, with a female pastor is a powerful image of how much our God loves women.  The world can say whatever about a woman, but it doesn’t matter.   What God says about his daughters IS important and it’s amazing, and I want my daughters and your daughter(s) to sit in that Truth.  

So, where can you go where you and your daughter can experience Jesus at the center of your travel plans?  This is something that we enjoy and we look forward to and I hope we can continue this tradition for years to come.  

Let’s turn our Eyes to Jesus because it’s all for His Glory.

In love,

Kassie Leigh