L to R: Lindsay, Leah, Kat, Stepanie & Donielle
The Relevant blogging conference was a rich time building new friendships, learning the importance of time management, balancing priorities, writing well, and striving to become intentional bloggers for the Kingdom of God. I was privileged to meet so many lovely ladies – including my lovely contributor and now a dear friend, Kat (pictured with me below). We roomed together for two of the nights and had a blast! She is a woman with a mission – God’s mission to encourage wives and mothers to live intentionally. I love her! I loved finally meeting Stephanie & Donielle as well (pictured above), my fellow real food bloggers.
Crystal Paine shared on the importance of time management and I have gleaned so much from her tips and suggestions. She stressed the importance of keeping a simple and clean inbox – unsubscribing from anything that is cluttering it! A huge help for me! She recommended an ebook: Tell Your Time: How to Manage Your Schedule and Live your Life Fulfilled by Amy Lynn Andrews that I have been delving into and can highly recommend. It helps you learn how to make a time budget and list out your priorities, scheduling and such. Amy (who was also at the conference) also blogs extensively about how to set up a blog, maintaining it and such, which is a great resource for those who are wanting to venture into this world of blogging.
I also was privileged to meet Sally Clarkson – a dear godly woman and author of my favorite book on motherhood, Mission of Motherhood. What a sweet challenge she had for us to become message maker’s after God’s heart in our blogging. She encouraged us to see the importance of being faithful in our homes because we are God’s word to our children. She stated, “it is the living of life not the writing of life that changes lives.”
Finally, Ann Voskamp (pictured with me above) gave a final challenge that was incredible about Blogging in the Upside Down Kingdom. Thankfully, you can read and listen to it here. This woman is an incredible writer and encouraged us to tell our story through our writing. Like a mother duck that plucks feathers from her chest to build her nest, we are to pluck feathers from our chest to meet the needs of our family first and for others in our writing (or whatever ministry God has called you too). She called us to humility. To see our writing as an art, a service, a worship to our King! To make our writing a gift. It’s not about the numbers, the statistics, but about the only ONE number that counts – Jesus! Her book, One Thousand Gifts comes out in January, and I highly recommend it! She gave out downloads to attendees and I have been blown away by her call to a radical life of thanksgiving. It’s changing my life and I plan to share more in the upcoming weeks as God changes me…
So my cup is full this month and I have much to process and pray through as I move forward in this ministry that God has assigned me. I want to glorify God in all that I do – including my writing here at Passionate Homemaking. I am seeking direction. Stay tuned for a special giveaway and survey as we move forward in planning out the new year!
