Trip to Philly

So two weeks ago Jeremy and I were packing for a long weekend in Philadelphia. We went out there to attend the CCEF (Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation) annual conference. Each year they pick a topic to focus on and this year it was about fear and anxiety. There were several general sessions, and about 16 elective sessions to pick from. We learned about all sorts of things - from obsessive compulsive disorder, to fear of death and aging, to helping fearful children, to responding when the terrible things we fear actually come true. It was a lot of information to take in! When we first got back everyone was asking us about the conference and what the highlights were, and so on. I wasn't sure how to sum it up then, and I'm still not, but now I know what has stood out to me the most. Ever since we got back I just keeping thinking about the fact that God gives us grace FOR THE MOMENT. We all have things we fear or tend to feel anxious about, but until those things actually come true for us we will not receive the grace to handle them. I know this to be true, from my own life and from hearing about other people's experiences, but I think I still tend to forget it. So it has been so helpful for me to dwell on that the past two weeks. There's no sense worrying about something that might happen in the future, because God isn't going to give me the grace to handle those things until they actually happen. If He gave us the grace now, we wouldn't realize our need for Him. Am I making sense? I think they said it much more eloquently at the conference.

So, we enjoyed the conference and we even had some free time to go exploring. We saw a few historic places in Philadelphia and we spent a great afternoon in Valley Forge National Park. That's where the pictures were taken.