My Heart's In Dixie

So I was all fired up and ready to write after the Kansas City Women of Faith “Over the Top” conference – I spent the four-hour drive home crafting this brilliant, inspirational blog post I would unleash as soon as I got home. It would be so good, the Women of Faith people would hire me on the spot to write for them (what, I don’t know, but go with me – it was a fun dream), and a literary agent would come banging on my door begging me to drop everything else I was doing and write that novel…and by the way, here’s a nice fat advance on that novel so you can drop everything and write. (The concept of “go big or go home” obviously extends well into my fantasy life.)

And then I walked through my front door…and the Muhammad Ali of reality knockouts hit me square in the face.

Because there was an eight-year-old complaining that her six-year-old sister was bugging her by singing Justin Bieber at the top of her lungs all day long. And there was a six-year-old punching her sister because said sister was saying her singing stank like goat cheese. And there was a ten-month-old baby boy – having already mastered the art of dodging the foot stomping that accompanied the complaints and punching – trailing a roll of toilet paper behind him as he made it halfway up the stairs before anyone noticed he was teetering on the edge of yet another goose egg on his head. And there was a husband who’d held it all together beautifully for the entire weekend but now wanted a very well deserved break. Now. Right now.

And that was all before I got out of the foyer.

Over the next month, we had cheer competitions and dance conventions and birthday parties and Thanksgiving school parties and field trips and an actual Thanksgiving and an endless pile of laundry and piles of work and a disrespectful client and other nice but needy clients and running…and more running…and more running.

And I look up and it’s December. And I once again feel the sting of failure. Of imperfection. Of not being enough.

And then I remember what Sandi Patti said at Women of Faith: “There is not enough of me to go around. We’re always telling ourselves we’re not enough. Ladies, God is enough.”

And then I remember more of what God was trying to beat into my head tell me through all the amazing speakers and performers at Women of Faith. I remember Andy Andrews reminding us that, if we’re still breathing, it means God’s purpose for your life hasn’t been fulfilled. There’s more love and laughter to enjoy, so go enjoy it. I remember Deborah Joy Winans showing us so vividly through Jesus’ example that we should “drop our rocks” because throwing those nasty verbal “rocks” at ourselves or others doesn’t get rid of sin. Trade your rocks for grace – God has.

I remember Lisa Whelchel (O/T: seriously, how does she look the same as she did 20 years ago?!) sharing what she’s learned about friendship and the value of imperfect friends who’ll give you grace because they’ve experienced it in their own messy lives. I remember Patsy Clairmont telling us three words to focus on every morning: “Yes. Thank You. No.” “Yes” and “Thank you” to God and “No” to those who have plans for your life that drain you and take you away from what God wants for you. And I remember Mandisa, Sandi Patti and Amy Grant lifting up their heavenly voices to praise Him and leading us all to the mountaintop.

And I remember why God sent me to Women of Faith – to remind me that He is with me always. He is the still, small voice comforting me, offering me solutions, taking care of all my needs, disciplining me when I invariably screw up, and giving me the grace that I desperately need and yet find so hard to give myself. I can’t wait to go to another Women of Faith conference and get that kind of reinforcement and guidance from imperfect but blessed women again.

God sent me there to remind you of this as well….or to tell you about it if you’re hearing it for the first time. He is real, He is faithful, and He is ready to give you the peace and love and grace you desire. When I get out of my own way and surrender to God’s desires for my life, I am blessed in ways beyond my imagination. I hope you have that intimate, personal relationship with Him as well. If you don’t, and you want it, let’s talk. All it takes is for you to put down your rocks, open your heart and know – truly know – that God is enough.

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I am so excited to announce that I’m an “official blogger” for the Women of Faith: Over the Top conference in Kansas City Nov. 4 & 5. I’ll be live-blogging from the conference right here on my blog, and I’ll also be live-Tweeting at @MistieT using hashtag #WOFOTT. If you can’t attend in person, follow my blogging and Tweeting – but after watching this video, you’re going to want to see this in person if at all possible. I know I can’t wait to be surrounded by 10,000 or so wonderful women committed to living out the Lord’s purpose in their lives with His provision and grace – Philippians 4:13, baby! Hope to see you in person or online Nov. 4 & 5!

Women of Faith 2011: Over the Top

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I have an insanely bad memory. I can’t remember names, I’m even worse with numbers, and the Princesses have already lapped me on the number of Bible verses memorized – it’s truly pathetic. But there is one day…one day that was carved into my brain with such ferocity that the mere mention of it makes my heart hurt. That day, of course, is 9/11.

I’ve never been able to just briefly pause on 9/11, maybe say a quick prayer, and move on with my day. I irritated my then-boss when she chose 9/11 as the day to host our firm’s annual Cardinals game day party at Busch Stadium and I objected. Only two years after the attacks, I felt – as I do now – that it should be a day of remembrance, prayer and service, not a day to schmooze clients with food and beer at the ballpark. Of course, not being the boss, our game day party went on as planned, but I remember her coming up to me after the short pregame commemoration service at the stadium and saying (with an almost imperceptible touch of “geesh, just chill & go have a beer” in her voice), “Did that make you feel better about having the party today?”

Nope. Sure didn’t. But, uh, thanks for asking? (Sorta felt like Kevin Bacon getting spanked by the sadistic frat dudes in “Animal House” – bet it doesn’t shock you that I no longer work there, huh?)

So today I write down my memories of 9/11, not because I will ever forget, but because we each have a story to tell about that day. And each person’s story needs to be told, even if it is only shared with the next generation in one’s own home. Because our children will remember our stories, and they will tell their children, and that will ensure that the power of that day will never be lost, or minimized, or – especially – rewritten to fulfill some idea of political correctness. We cannot let that happen – Ephesians 6:13 tells us why: “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”

When I turned the key in my car that bright, sunny morning to head to work, the radio began to blare not music, but the show hosts talking about a plane hitting one of the Twin Towers. I grabbed my phone with one hand and called my friend and colleague on maternity leave, while the other hand took over driving to my office. She didn’t answer with “Hello” but “Oh my God, Mistie, the plane hit the tower and it’s on fire and no one knows why it hit the building and…” She was rambling semi-hysterically, more at the impossible images she was seeing on her TV than me. I tried to interrupt her ranting with the question that I needed answered at the moment: “What color was the plane?”

Odd question, granted, unless you know that one of my clients was American Airlines. And that part of my work for that client was crisis communications. And that on that day, as was the case 24/7, I had on a “crash pager” that alerted me when a crash occurred. If it went off, I was extremely well-trained in what to do – call in, get the order for where to go (most likely a nondescript building downtown that few knew housed a crisis communications room for the old TWA, now American Airlines), and begin taking calls and answering questions about the crash from the media.

So I wanted to know what color that plane was – if it was silver, I knew my pager could very well go off and I could be called into service. But what my friend was seeing on her TV screen was so horrific that she didn’t even hear me – she just kept up a steady stream of increasingly panicked chatter about what she was seeing, as if her brain wasn’t keeping up with what her eyes were seeing. It was a phenomenon that would become increasingly familiar to me as the day wore on. It took several tries at asking the question until I finally screamed as loud as I could into the phone, “Adrian, WHAT COLOR WAS THE DAMN PLANE?”

Silence. It finally clicked in her head what I was asking, and after a few moments of silence,  in a near-whisper she said, “Oh my God, Mistie, it was silver.”

I hung up on her (sorry about that, BTW) and raced to the office. By the time I got there, the second plane had hit the other tower. I ran to my desk and frantically began trying to pull up CNN’s website to get the latest information, but since pretty much everyone else was doing the same exact thing, I couldn’t get it loaded. Our firm’s CEO was in a meeting in our conference room, oblivious to what was happening. I knew it was time to interrupt and let her know. She said later that when she saw my face, she knew something beyond terrible had happened, and my words confirmed it. I remember operating on auto-pilot at that point, just trying to gather the facts and figure out next steps. My brain couldn’t yet go beyond that.

We quickly discussed what to do – the crash pager hadn’t yet gone off, but we decided to begin the 20 minute journey downtown anyway, because we figured the pager would be going off soon. I ran to my car and began to back out, but stopped when I saw our receptionist running for my car. I rolled the window down to hear her say, “A plane just hit the Pentagon.”

My breath left me. Terror, sheer undiluted terror coursed through every cell of my body. The unimaginable could no longer be denied – our country was under attack. I managed to gasp out, “Was it an American plane?” but the sentence ended in a sob of complete fear. She said she didn’t know, but she grabbed my hand and snapped me back from the verge of hysteria. “Mistie, you have to hold it together. They need you to do your job. Hold it together.” I’m grateful to her for that. I found my breath again, backed out and begin driving toward downtown. As I turned onto the highway going east, the only thought I could put together was a question: was I going to see downtown St. Louis explode in front of me as I drove into it? It seemed so crazy to even think that, but at the same time completely rational, when the utter insanity of the morning’s events were blaring in my ears through the radio.

On the way downtown, I got the call that we weren’t needed for crisis communications, so the CEO and I went to her home to watch the news and monitor what was going on, in case the situation changed and the airline needed us. Of course, what we learned later was that some government security agency – FBI, CIA or whatever alphabet soup name you prefer – took over communications between the media and the airlines, and that we could have done nothing to help. But sitting on my colleague’s couch, watching the absolute nightmare unfold, I’ve never felt so useless and impotent as I did that day. I felt as we all did – we saw our countrymen hurting, injured and dying, and we so wanted to help, but there was nothing we could do…except pray.

One more detail of that day stands out. I remember watching in disbelief as first one, then the second tower collapsed. It was like watching a Hollywood disaster movie – I had to keep reminding myself that what I was watching was real. When the second tower collapsed, my colleague Cathy turned to me and said, softly, “Our lives will never be the same.”  How prophetic her words were.

So I remember…and I think I always will cry…and I pray for the right words to tell the story to my children, born after 9/11 and struggling to understand why anyone would attack us. And I pray for all those lost, and for all those left behind, wounded in body and soul. And I pray for my beloved country. And I resolve to put on the armor of God, to face the evil that wants to destroy us – but cannot and will not – and to stand.

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