Geyer Springs First Baptist Church, Little Rock, AR

Christ Community Church Retreat, West Chester, PA

Meet Louann Rogers (Women’s Ministry Director) and Deb Cornelius (Retreat Coordinator) from Christ Community Church in West Chester, PA. These two dynamic, Spirit-filled leaders and friends share a common vision: to bring women into a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ. What a joy it was to co-labor with them and witness God’s power at work throughout the weekend!	I arrived at the retreat with laryngitis, but God provided a speaker for the Friday night session: Priority’s own Shanda Stiles. Shanda has started travelling with me, and she did a beautiful job sharing at Friday night’s session as Deb interviewed her.
These four, long-time friends – Leah (Deb’s mom), Barb, Janet, and Pat were a huge blessing to Shanda and me throughout the weekend. Their love for the Lord and for one another spilled over into our own lives in such an encouraging way. What an inspiration you girls were to us! We truly miss y’all.	Roxanne (in the leopard print top) led out that weekend as our unofficial Minister of Fun and Laughter! But our favorite memory of Roxanne was watching her whole-hearted worship and hearing her incredible testimony. Roxanne, we love you!
The Christ Community Women’s Retreat was held at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware – right on the Atlantic seaboard. Here’s the view from our balcony. We may be proud, Texas girls, but that that Atlantic coastline is spectacular!

Mission Hills Church, Greenwood Village, Colorado

Now here’s the view on the way to my final retreat this spring: the foothills of the Colorado Rockies. Gorgeous! God’s awesome handiwork was so obvious as Stephanie (my sweet daughter-in-law) and I travelled to Young Life’s Trail West Lodge in Buena Vista, CO for the Mission Hills Women’s Retreat.	Janet Carter (Women’s Ministry Director) was such a blessing and encouragement to Stephanie and me at the Mission Hills retreat as were retreat coordinators, Kathy Stafford and Jeannette Roberts. How in the world we neglected to get a picture of Kathy and Jeannette to share with you I will never know. Kathy and Jeannette, we love y’all! How grateful we are for your leadership and friendship.
Stephanie and I arrived at Denver Airport in the midst of a blizzard, but once we arrived in Buena Vista, it was beautiful. When we saw this orange mosaic-tile couch and chair in a park in historic downtown Buena Vista, we knew it was a photo-op. Thank you, Lord, for my sweet Stephanie and for the gift of serving You together.
Here are a few fun faces of the over 140 sweet sisters we met at the Mission Hills Women’s Retreat. Girls, we will never forget all that God did while we were with you. We praise Him for drawing all of us closer to Him and some to salvation during our wonderful weekend together!

An Angel in Grandmother's Clothing
by Emily Ryan, Executive Editor 

Several years ago, before I was married, I was walking through the parking lot to church on a Sunday morning, and I saw a perfect picture of what I expected my life would be. In front of me was a young couple. She held two Bibles in her left hand (his and hers, no doubt, probably with matching monograms etched in gold on the front covers), and she was holding her husband’s hand with her right. In his other hand, he carried their newborn daughter who was asleep in her infant seat. 

It was a beautiful picture, and from where I observed from a safe, non-stalker-like distance behind them, they had it all. They had love, they had God, and they had a family.  And I’m pretty sure birds were circling above them too, chirping some kind of Disney song, no doubt. “That’s what I want, God,” I said. “I want to walk hand-in-hand with my husband to church each week while he tells me I look beautiful in my new dress, and our three children in matching blue and yellow outfits walk beside us and practice their Bible memory verses for Sunday school. I want that perfect picture!”

If I had listened for a response, I guess I would have heard God laughing. Because my Sunday mornings have turned out somewhat differently, to say the least.

For starters, my husband Jason has to leave before the rest of us even wake up since he’s on staff at church. So it’s a frantic solo dash every week to wake up the boys, feed them breakfast, get them dressed, brush their teeth, comb their hair, pack their bags, and speed drive safely to church. 

Instead of a lover’s stroll with monogrammed Bibles, peaceful babies and chirping birds, it’s a crazy pregnant woman rushing through the parking lot, juggling a squirmy baby, an independent preschooler, a diaper bag, a purse, a Bible, a sippy cup, and who-knows-what-else -- all the while just praying that I remembered to put on both earrings and that I make it to Bible study class before all of the coffee runs out.

Now imagine what happens when it’s raining…

A few weeks ago, it was doing just that, so on top of the usual circuslike juggling, I was trying to fit the three of us under my son’s tiny, lime green VeggieTales umbrella as we sprinted from the minivan to the shuttle bus that would take us from the far parking lot (where the late comers park) to the children’s building.

We climbed onto the bus, and as we shook like three drenched puppies coming in from the rain, God sent an angel in grandmother’s clothing to sweep in, make it all better, and teach me an important Mother’s Day lesson.

I didn’t even see the woman at first. I just felt someone take my bag and my purse from my shoulder and saw a sweet, wrinkled hand lead my older son to the first available seat. “Here, Sweetie, let me help you!” she said, after she’d already helped immensely. She took my umbrella and closed it, sat me down next to my son and I half expected her to offer me milk and cookies with the way she turned chaos into peace in about fifteen seconds flat.

The peace didn’t last, of course. “Uh oh, Mom. Canaan’s missing a shoe!” my three-year-old said.

Immediately, super-grandmother-angel-woman was at it again. She jumped up yelling, “I’ll look for it!” and ran out of the bus... into the rain… with no umbrella. “Which car is yours?” she yelled as she shielded her eyes from the raindrops. I pointed, speechless, and watched as she weaved in and around the other cars, searching between them and under them for the lost shoe. “It must still be inside,” she concluded and got back on the bus. “Go check real quick,” she said with the authority of a grandmother telling her granddaughter to wash up before supper. And seeing as how she had already pulled one-shoed Canaan into her wet lap, that’s exactly what I did.

I found his shoe still in his car seat where she said it would be, and the rest of the morning was surprisingly uneventful. Somewhere along the way, I think I told the woman thank you, but I’m not even sure of that. I just know that after my boys were in their classrooms and I was walking alone to my Bible study class, I realized that my perfect picture of what I wanted my life to look like had changed that day.

I didn’t want to stroll into church looking perfect and unflawed. Instead I wanted to be the church, the very body of Christ, with my hands and arms reaching out to help those around me just like this sweet lady had helped me. Without even knowing it, she taught me three tips for serving those in need:

1. She let her experience complement her service.
   Clearly, this woman had been there. Somewhere down the road, she had juggled her own children and knew what it felt like to feel the weight of a three-year-old tug at her arms while trying to balance a baby precariously on her hip. She helped me in a way that she probably wished someone had helped her all those years ago.
   
   God gives us our own experiences and our own trials for a reason. One of those reasons is to instill empathy into our lives that we may reach and help others who are going through similar trials.
   
   What experiences do you have that God can use to minister to others? Sometimes your biggest trials can be your biggest assets in knowing how to serve and comfort those around you.

   “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”
   2 Corinthians 1:3-4

2. She saw a need and acted upon it.

   I love that this woman never asked me if I needed or wanted help. (I would have said, “No thanks, I’ve got it under control.”) Instead she just acted.

   It’s easy to tell someone you’ll pray for them, isn’t it? But what’s harder is to stop what you’re doing and pray with them right then. And even harder than that is to walk away from that prayer and act upon their needs right away.

   Have you missed out on opportunities to serve because you walked away to think about it, to discuss it, or even to pray about it? What keeps you from meeting a need right when you see it? 

   “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”
   1 John 3:18

3. She went the extra mile.

   This woman literally ran into the rain for me. I couldn’t believe that. It would have been enough that she helped with my children and with my bags. But she didn’t stop and she didn’t let her own level of comfort dictate the amount of help she was willing to give.

   What about you? Do you help when it’s convenient, or do you let the need dictate the amount of service you’re willing to give? Jesus was the prime example of going the extra mile. He did more than preach. He did more than heal. He did more than love. He even did more than die.

   He was executed.

   The next time you see someone in need, whether it be a young mom trying to hold it all together or a little old man searching his pockets for change, I hope you’ll go the extra mile for him or her. Instead of walking away saying, “Well it was the least I could do,” maybe you’ll walk away saying, “It was the most I could do.”

   “If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.”
   Matthew 5:41

I’ll never forget how that super-grandmother-angel-woman helped me that morning. She gave me a new “perfect picture” of what I want my life to look like: Dear God, forget the super-mom image; you can keep it. Forget the magazine-cover look of a perfect family; it’s not important to me after all. Forget the untarnished, unused, ineffective shadow of a woman and instead make me look like a servant!

Oh, but if you can still manage some chirping birds circling overhead, I guess I’ll keep those! - Emily

Click here to email Emily

Priority Prayer Points
by Nancy Campbell, Prayer Director

In the hustle and bustle of life, most women (and especially moms) can’t always drop everything and spend an uninterrupted hour on their knees in prayer. But when we follow the advice of Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 and pray without ceasing, we realize that we don’t have to stop everything else at all! Instead, we can pray right in the midst of the hustle and bustle, and we hope you’ll join us as we do just that!

1. The pilot study of Beauty by the Book for Teens wraps up on May 12. Pray for Laurie as she prayerfully considers the evaluations and feedback from the girls in the study in order to perfect the final workbook before publishing it.  And pray for the girls in the study, that they would put into practice the truths of becoming biblically beautiful young women.

2. Pray for Laurie and the Priority staff as they do the videotaping for Beauty by the Book for Teens on May 14-15. Pray that the entire set – from the video crew and volunteers to the lighting and the weather outside – would work together in excellence to yield a final product that truly glorifies God.

3. Join us in thanking God for the donations we have received so far for the production of Beauty by the Book for Teens. And pray for those considering investing into the lives of young women through the study, that they would follow God’s prompting and give generously.

If you have something you’d like us to pray for, please email Nancy Campbell, Priority’s Prayer Director. We may be in a busy season right now, but we’re never so busy that we can’t pray for you!

Email your request to Nancy

Here's where Laurie will be going and glo-ing soon.  Please pray.  Thanks!

Gotta Glo

If this was your first issue of You Glo Girl! we hope you enjoyed it! We pray you were blessed, and that you who are mothers will especially be blessed this Mother’s Day. As always, if you have any questions or comments about the newsletter or anything else Priority related, Emily would love to hear from you.

Gotta glo for now!

Your Priority sisters,

Laurie Cole, Pam Henderson, Shanda Stiles, Jan Hart,
Debbie Todd, Stephanie Cole, Nancy Campbell, and Emily Ryan
Priority Ministries Staff