Bringing a Message of Hope, Healing to Twin Cities

By Julie Saffrin

Since its inception in 1996, nearly two million women in 125 cities have attended a Women of Faith conference. With inspirational speakers such as Luci Swindoll (Chuck Swindoll's sister), Patsy Clairmont, Sheila Walsh, Marilyn Meberg, Barbara Johnson and Thelma Wells, over 13,000 women between the ages of 8 and 80 are expected to attend the September 13th-14th conference at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. "We don't give step one, step two instruction, there is no political agenda," says motivational speaker and author Thelma Wells, one of the keynotes addressing the conference. "We want women to come and experience the joy, love, peace, and grace in Christ, and to leave refreshed, rejuvenated, and revived, with the pressure lifted off of their lives."

The event is open to all women, with thousands of women making decisions for Christ at each event.

This year's theme, Sensational Life is proof that women, no matter how painful their past, can and do live sensational lives in Jesus Christ.

Former television host and recording artist Sheila Walsh battled clinical depression. Popular author and radio personality, Patsy Clairmont overcame agoraphobia. Barbara Johnson, lost two sons and was estranged for more than a decade from a third son engaged in a homosexual lifestyle.

"Women see that if God can change our lives, He can do it for them." Wells says. Using powerful personal stories, gut-level honesty and humor, Women of Faith provides a message of encouragement and hope.

Born in the South in 1941 to a crippled, unwed teen whose parents forced her out of the house, Wells, at the age of two, became ill. Her grandfather's mother took Wells in and nursed her back to life while her mother worked for a wealthy Dallas family. Wells was raised going to church with her great-grandmother, accepting Christ when she was four years old.

Eventually Wells went to be with her grandmother where she was locked in a closet under the pretext of her grandmother not "wanting a hot iron to fall" on her. Wells credits her great-grandmother's bringing her to church as the reason she came out of her abusive situation without any hostility or rebellion. She bears no scars from her closet confinement because God protected her mind. "I would fall asleep singing hymns," she says of those food-depraved hours each day. "Even my fears of being in that closet alone, God calmed. God inhabits our praises and rejoices when He is given praise through our circumstances."

Wells hopes her story at the conference will inspire other abuse victims to choose the path she has-a peace-filled one. "We all have dark closets in our lives. Financial disaster, grief, a child who has wavered, a husband who has left. God has a way out of the closets." Her message is that women not live in the past. "You cannot ponder what happened to you all the time. Liberty comes in releasing the person who has hurt you to God."

As for the conference coming to St. Paul two days after America remembers last year's attacks of 9/11, Wells says, "We have to ask God to secure our homes and fortresses physically, but the ultimate security is in the name of Jesus. Jesus shed his blood that we may be secure that He's the ultimate protector. Each day I plead the blood of Jesus on my family and a hedge of protection, that ministering angels will provide a fence, a bevel, around each member."

So how does Wells answer when bad things happen? "When the abuse was going on, God was crying. He never wants these things to happen. We've been given freedom of choice. God gives us His word, His knowledge, to understand right from wrong. A person can choose to act on the dark side. But just as we can choose to do a wrongful act, so too can God take something evil and turn it around for something good."

Wells has chosen to use what happened to her to help others. A motivational speaker since the late seventies before joining Women of Faith, Wells is convinced that once a person knows their purpose she can work to eliminate the negative from her life. The key, she says, lies in forgiving people, memorizing scripture, praying and worshiping God.

Wells encourages women to do something that has value eternally. "When we see the clerk behind the grocery store, we shouldn't give them a bad day, we should give them a smile. By edifying someone, we edify God."

"What you see on stage is what you see off stage. We have different tastes, are different people, but we have the same Spirit, and the same God," Wells says. "We are authentic with our audience."

To keep the team accountable to each other, they have a devotional period together, a time of prayer and at every conference, an intercessor, Lana Bateman, who walks the arena and prays for the staff and women attending.

Through inspirational messages, sharing personal experiences, comedy routines, and music, Women of Faith provides women with a two-day break from stress, guilt, fear, societal pressures, and busy schedules, and encourages women to become all God wants them to be.

Women of Faith Website

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