Some of you may (or may not) have noticed that my blog has been a little quiet for the past week. This is primarily due to the fact that I was not around from Thursday to Sunday. I had the opportunity to attend the MOPS International 2008 Convention.

The weekend was filled with speakers, authors, artists, and time to get to know others from my local group. Because our local group has helped us with fundraising for leadership training like this, one of the other women who attended and I are going to be giving a little recap of our weekend tomorrow at our meeting. When I got to thinking about what I wanted to say, I had a list that was far too long for the time I’ll be given. I am trying to whittle down two and a half days of information into about two and a half minutes.

The final general session that we attended was where it all came together for me. All weekend, we had been asked to wear buttons that said SDWSC on them. People had all sorts of guesses what that could mean, and on Saturday afternoon, we finally learned. It meant, “she did what she could.” Elisa Morgan, the CEO of MOPS, was speaking that afternoon. She talked about Mary bringing perfume to Jesus and seemingly wasting it in an elaborate gesture of pouring it over his head (Mark 14). Then, she elaborated on the sentence “She did what she could.” Mary gave what she had. She did what God had asked of her. She didn’t look around to see what others were doing. She didn’t trade her perfume for something more useful. She didn’t sit around wishing that she knew how to sing a beautiful song or write a breathtaking poem. She did what she could. That right there was the Big Idea for me.

In addition to our general sessions, we also had smaller sessions throughout the day on Friday. My first session was geared toward raising children with a concern about the world, the environment, and how our actions affect others. The speaker, Tracey Bianchi, talked about teaching your children to love something and become passionate about it. Then, once they love it, whatever that it is, they will be more likely to protect it and try to save it. The “it” might be a certain population of people, a type of animal, an aspect of the environment, or something else entirely. Although she gave many ideas, I didn’t leave her session feeling overwhelmed, I felt motivated. I want my kids and my family to be socially aware. I want us to make a positive impact on the world. This includes the environment and, as much as possible, people on the other side of the world, too. I also had two other great sessions. I have a couple many new books on my to be read list. There is so much I could say tomorrow about this conference, but what really sticks out is that she did what she could. That’s what God expects of me. That’s what I should expect of myself. I don’t need to do everything, but I do need to do what I can when I can.