Alive in San Diego...
Friday night and Pete and I get a chance to take a breath from the exhilaration of the Willow Leadership Summit. We have been in La Mesa, CA at Journey Community Church, Greg and Cheryl's old church. We have loved it here. The volunteers are wonderful, the guests are loving every minute of the conference and we are, again, in process. Some here know our story, many do not. Each time we have exposed a little of ourselves, I am amazed at the stories that come from that.
The conference speakers have included Bill Hybels, of course, Rick Warren (Purpose Driven Life), John Maxwell, Henry Cloud, Mona Saso (who I met in South Africa), Colleen Barrett (Pres. of Southwest Airlines) and more. Aaron Niequist did some of the music for the conference and that reminded me of his "Let My Words Be Few" at Laurie's funeral service. Could you ask for any more excellent teaching? Probably not. But what has moved me the most in the last three days? A little book we just bought today. "Nice Girls Don't Change the World" by Lynne Hybels.
I asked Pete to get us two copies, one for Katie and another for Kristin. Between packing for our return home, writing thank you notes, wrapping some gifts, I started reading...oh,man, Lynne is on to something. Listen to this, "I've been working so hard to keep everybody else happy, but I'm so miserable I want to die." Ouch, I thought of Laurie, the amazing people pleaser; I thought of Katie, trying to discover who she is; I thought of Kristin being the nice girl; I thought of me, wanting everyone to be alright.
Here's the amazing thing: the opposite of being the "nice girl" the people pleaser, has nothing to do with being mean or bad, instead, it is being a "good woman". Here is what Lynne writes:
"A good woman: The opposite of a nice girl, I learned is a "good woman." Being a good woman means trading the safe, passive, people-pleasing behavior of niceness for the dynamic power of true goodness. It means moving from the weakness and immaturity of girlhood toward the strength and maturity of womanhood." I am not able to do justice to the wisdom in this slim volume except to know I needed to read it and many other women need to read it. I want to be a good woman, with only one goal: to discern and live out the will of God.
posted by Barb K @ 12:02 AM
5 Comments:
You are not a good woman, you are a wonder woman! I am just one of the lurkers who have come to know your family and friends through your blogs and I keep you all in my thoughts and prayers.
Please post where can I purchase that book? I didn't see it on Amazon.
First to Lurker, I am surely not wonder woman, just want to be a good woman, maybe even dangerous in my pursuit of God. But thank you. And to Anonymous, this is a bummer. The book was made available only at the Summit until its' official release in a few months. We had 60 copies in our resource center and they sold out by Friday. Maybe call Willow Creek and ask if they have anymore left?
And to Deb, thanks for the prayers as always.
Love, Barb
Aunt Barb,
I'm so glad they turned Lynne's story into a book! She spoke at the BREATHE Women's Conference in April on this very subject. She totally blew my mind!
Mandy
As far as I see, you can order 'Nice Girls Don't Change the World' from the willow creek association website, FYI
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