Where in the world

Have I been? No, the kitchen sink issue didn't swallow me whole - although it almost did.

But I actually skipped Gluten Free Friday and no review here on Monday??? Is the world still revolving?

Well, I was away this weekend and actually hoped I could throw a couple blog posts up about what I was up to! But the service was too slow and I finally had to give up until I could come home.

I was at my very first Above Rubies retreat!!!!!! In case italics and 6 exclamation points doesn't convey my excitement to you.. maybe those of you who read Above Rubies will understand this....

I MET NANCY CAMPBELL!!!!!!!!!

If you aren't familiar with Above Rubies I really highly suggest that you sign up to receive their magazine. It's a free subscription. They operate based on donations, so whenever they have enough donations they go to press with the next issue. I have been overwhelmingly blessed by their ministry. If you're able to donate when you sign up, please do - you will not be sorry! There are a number of books from the Above Rubies store that I have LOVED and would highly recommend, I'm pretty sure anything of interest to you would be worthwhile. I haven't bought anything yet I didn't enjoy or learn from.

In this week I hope to share with you a number of things that really spoke to me this weekend that I hope to carry into my family life.

The most touching and amazing thing about the whole weekend was the group of women. There were somewhere between 50-75 women I'm going to guess, and I'm really not good at guessing numbers. There were babies, young girls, teenagers, young single women, new moms, older moms, grandmothers and any other description I can't think of. The amount of love, joy, acceptance, and generosity in that place was overwhelming. I have never, ever, been at any other type of Christian gathering that had the same atmosphere. Not to overlook that this gathering had the greatest amount of diversity! There were women who were what I would call more traditional wearing beautiful dresses and head coverings as their daily attire, there were women who were very classically feminine although that didn't necessarily always mean dresses, there were a few hippies and more modernly dressed women such as myself (that doesn't mean I don't dress femininely or beautifully! I just hope the descriptions can portray what I mean). There were all sorts of different denominations of the Faith represented.

There wasn't an ounce of condemnation or "why don't you do this my way" at all. I met so many women with beautiful hearts who just wanted to talk about God, His goodness, His faithfulness to their families, Biblical womanhood, and more. I enjoyed encouraging and being encouraged by all the women I met. And it was amazing to see that there could be a gathering of people who come from drastically different walks of life who all love the Lord and that was their focus. Loving the Lord, their families, and each other.

And, it was a place where the question "How many children do you have?" was asked in anticipation of high numbers.

What a weekend!