Minneapolis

My family and I went to Minneapolis this past weekend for the Desiring God Conference, which is organized by John Piper. We stayed at a great hotel and my parents came and watched Clara and Ruby while we went to the conference. I don't even quite know where to begin with what I learned. The topic was "words." The focus was, obviously, on what things come out of our mouths. The speakers were amazing...even the really smart and hard to follow ones. I have never been to a conference that I have really enjoyed until this one. I hope to return next year. I guess one of the main points that hit home was that loving others shouldn't be out of obligation or because it makes us feel good, we should love others out of gratitude for what Christ has done for us. His two most important commands to us are to love Him with our heart soul and mind and then to love our neighbors as ourselves. Let's face it...we seem to love ourselves quite a bit. It's not that hard to do. Loving difficult people is rough sometimes. It's easy to love people that are pleasant to be around...but people that talk too much or people that just rub you the wrong way are not as easy to love. Christ was perfect. He never once sinned and He chose to die for us and take our penalty for our sin. That is love!! Anything good that we do is because of Christ. How refreshing to know that we werent' meant to trod through this life on our own. Christ wants to be with us and have a relationship with us. I am baffled that such a powerful and loving God cares for such an imperfect and hopelessly sinful woman such as myself. I did learn a lot more that I would love to post, but my mind is still trying to grasp and organize the things that I learned. Plus, Trent is upstairs waiting with ice cream and a pod cast of Mark Driscoll's Song of Solomon series. I just can't get enough of that guy!!