What a Privilege to be the Guest Speaker at Luncheon

The ECW (Episcopal Church Women) of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church have a Luncheon every year for their Women’s Day Celebration and this year it’s the 58th annual. This year's theme was “Your Heart and Your Health”. So they contacted the AHA (American Heart Association) and asked if they had a speaker that would be able to come to the luncheon and speak on Heart Health. The Director of Communications and Marketing, Sarah Fedele, who I worked closely with (she wrote an article in Outdoor Woman Magazine (you can view the article here, page 10) about me and asked me to do an interview on TV for National Go Red for Women Day (you can view video here)) emailed me and asked if I was willing to do this luncheon. God in his infinite wisdom had opened up my schedule and allowed me to be free to do it, so I said yes.

It was awesome. The women were very inviting and super sweet. It was very comfortable there too. I asked the director of the event if 20 minutes was the absolute maximum time allowed or could I have 30 minutes my story was running a bit long. She said she really wanted for me to stay in the 20 minute time frame, so I cut more bits out of my story. But when I got up to the podium and started, I was a bit confused; I got the laughs where they needed to be and got a lot of "Amen’s!" where those needed to be. But when I came to the end for a few seconds you could hear a pin drop it was dead silent then they started to clap, loudly, I sat down, but I was worried I went long. I did notice as I was speaking the men that were there to help serve started to wander in from the kitchen first one then all 4 by the time I finished. As the luncheon wrapped up, I asked the director did I stay in the time frame, I was a bit worried I went over, she said "I didn't really care once you started, I wanted you to go on and not finish that was awesome". I was flabbergasted. That's why there was silence when I finished, they didn't want me to be finished. 

When I was leaving it took me a good 20 minutes to get out to my car, almost all the ladies came by to see me and talk to me. Several wanted to hear me speak again. I was blown away. 

I have prayed for the Lord to give me the opportunity to share my story and help others save their lives and their hearts. He has started me down this path.