*If you visit the Edel Gathering website at http://edelgathering.com/about/, this post will make a lot more sense. If you don’t visit the website, my pitiable summary is that Edel 2014 was a gathering of Catholic women from all over the country (plus two chicks from Canada!) for a unique experience of sisterhood, solidarity, and celebrating the vocation of women in society.*
I’ve deliberately fasted from the Edel recap posts of my favorite bloggers today so that I would be able to compose my own thoughts without the influence of others. Too often I look at life experiences and try to compare them to others’ life experiences to see if I perceived something the “right” way. Too often. Today, my restraint from reading ALL THE BLOGS before authoring my own post is one of many wonderful fruits I hope to see as a result of this weekend.
Like so many women I talked to this weekend, I didn’t think I would really be an Edel attendee. When I saw on Jen and Hallie’s blogs the first few glimpses of what it was all about, I told myself I would likely have to just read about it after it happened. We didn’t have the money in our already strapped budget (and I thought that BEFORE I saw the $200+ price tag), and there was no way I could convince my husband that I should go to a gathering of women I’d never met before. How could he even comprehend I considered many of these women my “friends,” when all we had previously shared with each other had been in the form of Facebook comments, Instagram photos, and Tweets?
I should’ve learned long ago never to underestimate Superman…or the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The day before tickets went on sale, I casually mentioned that there was “this awesome-looking conference coming up hosted by these two bloggers I really love, and I’ve already preordered the redhead’s new book and I would love to meet some of the other bloggers in person and too bad we can’t afford the tickets.” I didn’t even give him the website address. Initially. Later in the day, he told me to send him the link. I figured he was just curious. Valentine’s Day came, and I received my gift – a ticket to what was to become one of the most amazing weekends of my life.
Pray. Work. Motherhood. 