A few weekends ago, my friend Jackee and I attended the
Belong Tour in Lincoln, NE. Months prior,
I stumbled across this event as I’m a huge Jen Hatmaker and Shawna Niequist fan
and I think one of them posted something on Instagram about it that took me to
the event's page. Jen Hatmaker’s book For
The Love may be one of my all-time favorites. I also love her mother’s devotional Out of the
Spin Cycle and she has a new book coming out next year {YAYness!}. Shawna’s books Cold Tangerines and Bittersweet
are similar to Jen’s writing style and her new book Present Over Perfect is
on the New York Times Bestseller for the 4th week in a row now, it
was just released over the summer and I can’t wait to read it.
So what is the Belong Tour?
It’s more than just seeing Jen and Shawna speak live, in short this is
an excerpt from their website http://www.belongtour.com/:
BELONG is a Friday
night – Saturday live event bringing women together in arenas across the
country. Thousands of women will gather to hear remarkable communicators Jen
Hatmaker, Shauna Niequist, Nichole Nordeman, Sharon Irving, Angela Davis, Patsy
Clairmont hone in on how to live a fun, faith-filled, purposeful life.
There will be plenty of personal stories, music, laughter and maybe
even some tears in this open space where women can connect to one another, to
see and know each other, and carry each other’s burdens.
I knew that my friend
Jackee was a big Jen Hatmaker fan as well so sounded like the perfect girl’s weekend
trip and was so glad she was down for it!
On Friday, we stopped along the way at the NEX Outlets in
Omaha. I had been telling Jackee my ‘mom
game’ is way too strong and I needed some new clothes that didn’t scream ‘PTA
ready.’ The weekend prior, I had gone to
the Steven Tyler concert with another mom friend of mine and before she picked
me up, I had gone thru 10+ outfit changes and felt like all I have for clothes
anymore is wedding attire or mom attire, nothing in-between! When my friend picked me up for that concert I
was like dang you look smoking hot! She
had a super cute outfit, hair extensions in, fake lashes and heels. Here I was in my semi-mom outfit, hair that
hadn’t been washed in 2 days and flats.
My mom-game was way too strong! So all weekend Jackee and I joked about how
she needs to help me find some clothes that weren’t totally mom’d out. We had fun at the outlet and both ended up
with some good buys. It’s funny how we both have the same style, when we would
walk in a store, we would both wander off but end up in the dressing rooms with
the same stuff, even ended up buying the same shorts that weekend. #twinning.
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| Dinner in Lincoln |
After the outlet, we got into downtown Lincoln which I
thought was a cute-sy college town. Grabbed
dinner and headed into our first night at the Belong Tour. I felt like the first night was a little
like a ‘meet and greet’ of all the speakers.
They each spoke for about 10-15 minutes and it was a good introductory
for the weekend. Nichole Nordeman gave a
short concert, her music is so relaxing, I could listen to her all night! She sang her popular song ‘Slow Down’ which I
think we were all missing our babies at that point.
The next morning, we headed over to the venue and funny
story… I walked in before Jackee and had a bottled water and a coffee in both
hands, my purse had a package of nuts, a Lara Bar, a Fiber One Bar, and Mike and
Ike’s sticking out of the back. Jackee
walks in right behind me and she had a package of M&Ms in her purse and the
guy made her throw them away. She was
mad but I found it highly comical that I got in basically weighed down with
food and she tries to sneak in one thing and got stopped.
The morning started off with Angela Davis, an Olympian and
world champion track runner getting us on our feet for a workout. Jackee and I were like “is she serious right
now?!” She had the entire arena working
out and we were definitely starting to break a sweat. Throughout the event, Angela would get us up
on our feet and got our blood pumping, I didn’t expect I would be doing squats
that weekend.
Patsy Clairmont spoke first, she is the cutest elderly
lady! And so funny! She spoke about relationships, I don’t have
great notes from her piece but she had some good stories about her and her
husband and that lady had style! She had
these pearls on and sparkly TOMS, she was just pretty hip!
Jen Hatmaker spoke next and I really liked how she laid out
her talk. Basically her topic was on finding
“your race” or what your gifts/calling in life is. She made some good points that stuck with me
such as identify the gifts I have not the gifts I want. And
don’t disregard any quality as a ‘throw away’ quality, sometimes our calling
doesn’t have to be this big/huge thing in the eyes of the world. My friend Jackee has her own photography
business, she has already found her gift/calling. For me, I am at ground zero. I know what my strengths are and what I’m
drawn to but I just haven’t pinpointed how it translates into my calling
yet. Jen gave some good tips to help me
do some more thinking on that. Overall Jen
is exactly as I imagined her to be, I feel like we are pretty good friends, she
just doesn’t know it.
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| Jen Hatmaker |
Nichole Nordeman actually gave what seemed like the crowd’s
favorite talk, she gave an analogy of junk in a garage and how we need to open
our ‘garage doors’ so to speak or uncover some not so pretty things in our life
that we need to come clean on. We all
got ‘em, right?! It was a powerful talk
and she spoke directly about what her secrets she had been keeping in her ‘garage’
and I thought it was very brave of her to talk so openly about some painful
things in her life. Definitely made her
very relatable.
 |
| Nichole Nordeman |
Angela Davis gave a short discussion on spending time in
quietness each day. I definitely need to
work on that with 2 littles, I feel like I run non-stop from 6 am to 10 pm day
in, day out with no time for stillness.
Shawna’s topic is similar to her new book on reclaiming your
essential self. The main talking points
I had down were accepting and giving love, living a life full of love. And when you say ‘yes’ to something, you are
saying ‘no’ to something else, just the overall concept that ‘yes/no’ go
together. And we should say yes to good
work and no to someone else work that only leaves us exhausted. And to
remember that love is never found in the hustle. That last line may be my favorite and so
true, right?!
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| Shawna Niequist |
We were also treated to a special concert by JOHNNYSWIM and
oh my word was that a huge highlight from the weekend for us! The talent is indescribable! They are a married couple with a sweet little
boy and you know how sometimes in a couples’ band, there is one who is clearly
more talented than the other? Not with
these 2, they both are amazing!!! Can I just say they are gorgeous! Like your eyes are drawn to how beautiful they are as a couple. Even Jen Hatmaker told them to go get some flaws because they just seem all around perfect! I
loved hearing their stories between songs and why they wrote each song. Jackee and I were in absolute awe of them, so
much that I went home looked up the closest concert performing to us and we
already have plans to go see them later this year. Here is a video I took from the weekend:
Both Jackee and I thought the event was really good, we both
walked away with lots to talk about on the ride home and feeling refreshed and
inspired. And it was a great bonus to
get to hang out with her, we haven’t done anything fun together in a long
time! We were college roomies, maids of
honors in each other’s weddings and is certainly one of my best friends but
living 2+ hours away from each other, it makes it hard to get together and when
we do it’s normally for her to take pics of my kiddos and we usually have to
catch up during our sessions. So
basically I make her work when we do hang out J. So it was nice to have time where no work was
involved and the men were being super hubbys, taking the kids for the weekend
for us.
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| JohnnySwim |
This was the first ever Belong Tour and we left with the
impression that there will be an annual one in the forthcoming years, I’d
highly recommend it and hope I can make 2017’s!
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