IF:

As I prepare to host our 5th IF: Local Gathering, I can't help but take a look back at all the other times we gathered women in our local area for a time of seeking God's face and asking ourselves questions about the ways we are spending our one life.  Every single year since the inception of IF, God has unfolded a little more of his plans for our lives, for our healing and freedom. 

February 8, 2014, the second day of the very first IF: Gathering is a day I won't soon forget.  Sitting on the floor of our church with a small group of 4 or 5 women I poured out my heart all broken and bleeding.  That day would have been my 29th wedding anniversary. Instead of celebrating those years of good and hard with flowers and a candle light dinner,  I was waiting for the mail carrier to deliver my Final Divorce Order.  That first IF: Gathering Saturday, our hearts joined as my friend prayed over me and asked God to meet me in the doubt and fear of what life would be going forward.  Raw, messy, transparent, vulnerable fear was met with kind, gracious, tender love and I will be forever grateful for the opportunity to be known in such a rare and beautiful way.

There are three of us who attended that first gathering in 2014 who have continued to support, promote, and engage with women from different parts of the country who also have attended an IF event, whether that be the gathering in Austin, or Dallas or locally.  We are a sisterhood of freedom fighters who carry a torch that we pray ignites the whole world with love.  Each of us unique in our places, putting one foot in front of the other day in and day out realizing dreams God has placed in us and had planned for us from before we were born. Those good works that he had prepared and is causing to flourish as we simply join him where he is already at work spreading love and speaking welcome.

So this evening, as I prepare to light candles and heat up soup and place flowers on the table for my local sisters, I cannot help but smile to myself knowing there are hearts all over the globe that will be touched as women gather for a fifth IF: Gathering.  We are all connected, we are all different and we are all LOVED so very much just as we are right.this.moment. 

If you are not familiar with IF: Gathering but would like to be, click this link.  I can guarantee if you are willing to risk, God will meet you wherever you are with exactly what you need and you will be amazed over and over at His scandalous love for you and the tender ways he shows up to answer your questions or connect you to exactly what/who you need to take the next step toward living in freedom.

xoxo
Lisa