Breathless Haste

One of the best parts of the internship was that I was privileged to serve at and attend the amazing church conferences hosted throughout the year on the main campus in Barrington, Illinois. I, too, was getting a spiritual MBA, as the who’s who of national and international church leaders spoke at these conferences. The annual conferences included ones for small groups, evangelism, the prevailing church, the arts, teaching, and the leadership summit, to name a few. I was like a sponge, soaking in as much as I could from each speaker and song.

During one of the small group conferences, I heard a speaker named Dan Allender, a professor of counseling psychology and president of the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology in Washington. I still remember the exact spot where I was sitting that day at the conference. I was serving as a greeter, so I was in a single chair between the entry doors to the church’s lakeside auditorium. The conference was held in the same space I had been in months prior for Vision Night. These are the words Dan spoke: “Your whole story matters to God.” At that moment, something deep inside me shifted. My whole story matters? Even the dark and ugly parts? The parts buried deep in my soul? Is it possible that those parts matter to God? It was an awakening.