B.S.

that is what i had tonight...bible study, you freaks! i know many of you thought i was going to start going off on me, but dont worry. this has actually been something that i have been looking forward to for a long time. because my life has been getting so crazy with traveling, i have missed the last few bible study sessions. the group that i meet with is made up of my friends who all felt like we wanted something meaningful to come out of our time together...not that eating out and playing telephone pictionary isnt important! :) this group of women has been so encouraging to me over the last year that we have been meeting. some of us have been through some really crappy things and some really great things. there has been 2 weddings (soon to be 2 more), 3 pregnancies (so far), a couple break-ups, plenty of family drama, and one baby jax! this group has become a guide as to how the rest of my week/weekend will go and when i am not able to be there i am really disappointed. there have been plenty of sessions where our agenda gets way off schedule and all we accomplish is sharing a need with the group. other times we do great and have awesome discussion about the book we are studying...go figure with a group of nine women that we would end up talking about everything except what we are supposed to, right??!!??

tonight we asked a guest speaker to come and share her story of faith through forgiveness and what that process has looked like in her life. i was blown away by what God had for me tonight! i dont know why i am so surprised because this is a time that i had been specifically praying for in the last two days, but God really showed up and made some things very clear through the life story of this friend. while what she went through a few years back is totally different than what i am walking through right now, the love of Christ is the same. i want to share a few things that she said, and i know that by only getting a little snippet i will be cheapening the effect a little, but there is no way i could write it all. this has been a hard day for me, for no particular reason other than i get caught up in myself and i just love that God tells us what we need to hear right when we need to hear it.

thank you God for using the words of this wise and tender-hearted women to speak to me right where i am. thank you, laurie, for being willing to allow God to use you to impact my life!

here are just a few of the things that i wrote down...i know they are out of context, but still worth hearing!

"God loves us even when our life circumstances do not match that (our prospected feeling of love) and when that happens all we have to do is look at the cross to be reminded that God loves us."

"We are not to compare our sin to other peoples sin, we are to compare ourselves to Almighty God to see the depth of our sin."

"God is not concerned with our comfort. God is concerned with much bigger things like our heart."

"Eve was not called a soulmate, she was called a helpmate. This means that our marriages are our ministry."

"Am i silencing a demon with how i am responding to situations in my life? Am i strengthening an angel?" speaking of the spiritual warfare that is going on around us for us.

"There are 2 options, you can become more like Jesus or you can become a bitter women, it is a daily choice."

Isaiah 55:8-9 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways", declares the Lord. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than yours and my thoughts than your thoughts".

humbling to think that the thoughts and things i have planned for myself are not God's and that His thoughts and ways are higher than heaven for me. this is hard for me at times, but, thank you, Lord!

blessings, ALo