"Friends are great, but God is greater!"

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."  

 Matthew 5:8

This past weekend my mother, Anna and myself headed down to the cities to meet our friend's at Elizabeth's house. All of us, (Mom, Anna, Jayne, Hannah, Tabby, Lydia, Kathryn, Simone and Elizabeth) were going to attend Amy Vest's, "Pure Heart" purity conference.  We arrived at Elizabeth's a few hours early so we took a stroll around Central Park. It was a blast!  Every hundred few hundred feet we wanted to stop and get a picture together. =)  And at the end of the walk, we girls played tag on the playground! So fun! =) 

We went over to Bethlehem Baptist for the conference.  It was amazing! When most people think purity conference, they think of physical purity. But this was so much more!  It was all about being pure before God, and living a pure life for the Glory of Him!  Amy is so fun to listen to!  She just radiates with the joy and love of the Lord, not to mention the fun props that she likes to use.  The whole atmosphere was great: being with 450 other girls seeking after Jesus, the worship, the teaching, the Lord...all of it was amazing! 

God used this conference in a great way! All of it was just what I needed to hear at that time. I was encouraged to spend more time with the Lord; to press into Christ, to pursue Him.  And also, to surrender all to Him! He has such amazing plans for me, if I would just wholeheartedly surrender all to Him!  She gave this analogy: "We have a little bag of dirt, and we like to treasure our bag of dirt.  We hold onto it very tightly.  But God is offering to us a sparkling, beautiful gift.  Inside it are treasures unimaginable, and more than we can ask for.  So what do we do?  Will we give our 'little bag of dirt' to Christ, in return for His amazing gift?" 

Amy said something that stuck with me, (well all of it, but this one in particular).=)

        "I surrendered all to Him, and that's when I started to live."

Here are some pics to help you understand what a fabulous time we had! =)

Walking in unity. "Left, right, left, right."

It was windy, but that just adds effect. 

My Favorite! =)

Don't they just look adorable?!

Our lovely mothers :)

Girls, don't fall for frogs; wait until they're princes!

:: Anna, Amy and me::

The "Pure Heart" Ladies :)

Having fun at Wendy's, as you can tell.  Why? Because we're girls! DUH :)

<3 Tabby and me <3

The end our amazingly, wonderul, crazy, encouraging, animal-cracker filled time! :)