ONE HEART: PDX is an all-women’s event where women from around our city are gathering together to have a conversation on unity, friendship and the importance of community AND for a concert and time of worship…TOGETHER!
ONE HEART: PDX is all about…
The Music… The Music…Three unique and influential Portland artists are coming together to provide the music for ONE HEART: PDX. The evening will include original tunes from all three singer/songwriters ranging from soul to indie and folk sounds, as well as classic hymns and worship songs. This will be a fresh collaboration you will not want to miss.
Meet the Artists
The Speakers…Are some really amazing women who are vibrant, real, authentic and from right here in Portland. They are speakers, teachers, bloggers, writers, ministry leaders and prayer warriors, who are chasing after the heart of Christ.
Meet the Speakers
The Food…There will be fabulous light bites, tapas and appetizers catered by
The Lambs Table starting at 6 pm. Sweet treats will be served during intermission. All included in the ticket price.
The Purpose…How can we stop judging, comparing, and critiquing? Let’s have a conversation on how to encourage, support and build-up.
“As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.” Proverbs 27:17
One of my favorite, most romantic gifts ever was covered in cobwebs, rusty and from a garage sale! For someone that’s a bit of a germaphobe this is kind of a funny thing to say… but it was something I really wanted… and on our very tight newly married budget, there was no way we could afford what I’d dreamed of. A tandem bike!
I imagined my husband and I taking long bike rides through our neighborhood and to the market to get a few groceries in the cute basket I would put on the front. It all just seemed like something out of a movie. So when we spotted this old rusty tandem Schwinn at the garage sale hidden behind some newer bikes, my heart leapt with love for it and the romantic rides that were going to follow!! The kind man hosting the sale let us have it for practically nothing…warning us it was really old and needed work. “Who doesn’t?” I thought.
Back seat riders…
We rode that bike EVERYWHERE! We added a basket (just like I’d imagined) to the front and ultimately a baby seat to the back… It was the best. It’s true, itwas really old so we had it tuned up as best as we could, but there wasn’t anything we could do about how heavy it was…just share in the load! I’m certain we put hundreds of miles on that old beater…The more time we spent on the bike the better we got at knowing what we needed from each other… sometimes with just small signals, even in our leans. I had to really trust the front seat driver because I couldn’t really see around him. Sometimes I’d want to quit, but Mike would always remind me how much I wanted this….When Mike took a bug to the face he learned he couldn’t spit sideways…it always flew back at me…I bet you can imagine how this conversation went…(romantic?). And he needed me to pedal harder up hills not just rest and let him carry the load! These may seem like “duhs”…but sometimes I’d just get captivated in the distracting things along the way!! We were a good team and really worked in tandem on the tandem!! As time went on, I loaded the basket up front heavier with more and more groceries making the handles harder to hold steady. Mike never complained.
When our oldest daughter, Erica, was in first grade and my middle daughter was big enough to be in the baby seat I had a great idea!! I was going to take over the captain’s seat, and convert a 30 minute walk with a stroller and a dawdling toddler into a 10 minute bike ride.
I hadn’t realized just how much work being the captain of the ship or the captain of the bike was! I put Erica on my old seat and her backpack in the cute little front grocery basket…WOW! How did Mike hold these handlebars steady with my added groceries every time we went to the store? Would I be able to make the turns?
And my daughter’s little legs weren’t quite long enough for her feet to reach the pedals so I just propped them up on the cross bar. Mike never said a word when I didn’t feel like pedaling and just “rested” mine here for a few minutes! And the weight of that 20 pound two year old in the back!! Were we SURE she only weighed 20 lbs? It felt like she was tipping the scale at 100! It was almost impossible to keep the bike balanced and safe!
I rode all the way to school dropped Erica off and just walked the heavy bike, and my dawdling 20 pound two year old home.
We Need Each Other!
I quickly recognized all of the work my riding partner had been doing and all of the responsibility he had been shouldering when I took his position. If you’re always a backseat rider, you can’t really ever see what’s needed up front. My arms would never get stronger to hold the handle bars straight, and my legs would never be able to pull the weight for two or three of us withoutdoing it! I was not able to balance the bike without someone there who was leaning with me.
Sure, sometimes when you go through life with someone, you’re going to take a bug or two to the face…maybe even wear a little spit. But how else are you going to figure out how to tell each other that this is not the best way to do things if you’re not talking about it and going through it together?? Besides…the bug guts made us such better communicators so quickly! When you rely on each other and talk things through, it makes you better. I wanted to be a good counterbalance, because I saw how spending time together made us both stronger. Doing things together makes you individually better. It makes us better husbands and wives, partners and friends. We NEED each other!
For if they fall, one will lift up another. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!
Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man may prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him – A threefold cord is not quickly broken!
Ecclesiastes 4:10-12
