Bible Study... Last Week. And a lovely short story.

So in a blur of life I never got to share about last week's study, and honestly the reading from last week and this week have begun to blur in my mind...

But I'd like to share what God has been teaching me in general.

*We're afraid of praying "I'll do Anything." But the thing is... we are specks tossed by the waves anyway. Anything could happen to us anyway. God's hands are the safest place to be.

*I really related to what I think was chapter 3- I have lived all of my life desperate to please others, and let it rob me of my adventures with God. But what can mere mortals do to me? Really? Isn't life just a minuscule blip on the spectrum of eternity? They can hurt me once-- I'll live in God's happy kingdom forever.

*He is my soul's husband, and it is His approval and the peace I find in His arms that matters more than what anyone else thinks.

*I also really loved from this week's mention of Narnia in the reading. (I know, I'm getting ahead of myself but..) these books have always drawn me into the adventure of God's Kingdom like no other. As Jennie acknowledges, Lucy is largely the heroine in these stories. Why? The only thing spectacular about her is spectacular trust, hope, and belief.

*I am learning that He really is big enough for our questions! I've been asking some hard ones this week. I know this was really on Lauren's heart too-- what you shared made me cry because it was very familiar to me. But I think the whole reason I am a Christian today is because I asked God some very bold questions a few years back- like "Just show me you exist!" At that time in my life he brought me some amazing signs and books like The Case for Christ. (The Kindle Edition is 2.99 right now for anyone who wants to be faced with the amazing evidence for how very real our God is. A book written by a skeptic who set out to disprove the Bible-- and found he could not. It was powerful in leading some kids at my school to salvation.)

*Last week's challenge also taught me some pretty amazing things. Every time I was tempted to worry I prayed that God would saturate every area of my life instead. He made some amazing things happen-- like providing money out of nowhere. And I was reminded that in the middle of all my Martha-like worry, only one things matters.

Then, I thought I'd leave you with this slightly off topic short story I found in my inbox today. Maybe what we're grasping so desperately for is so much closer than we ever would have believed... 

Love and blessings abound!

-Rachel

Bible Study Week One

It's only been a week, but it's been one beautiful study. 

There are a few things I would love to share about what God's been doing this week-- and I hope you'll share in the comment box below if you'd like to join us for this study!(So far it's myself and Lauren from the beautiful Beautiful Hope). If you can't join in-- don't worry. I hope you'll be encouraged along the way in any case! 

So here's some prompts for you and for me...

1. Your thoughts after digging into the word. 

2. Your thoughts on the reading of Anything and the Good Morning Girls discussions/videos. 

3. The practical. How did the challenge go? The memorization of the verse? How has your studying impacted your life in a practical way? 

1. The SOAPS were almost... difficult for me this week. This week we really dug into the depths of how hopeless we are without Jesus. 

But I realized that the women who have impacted me most in this life, women like Katie Davis, and Ann Voskamp-- these women are those willing to wear the words messed up on their sleeve. And it's through their difficulties and weaknesses that I learn the extraordinary strength of my King! 

The Word really struck me afresh with the fact that I bring nothing. I know it, but sometimes? You need to wallow in it for a bit. All there is now is what HE has done. I don't bring anything to the table. I don't do anything for Him. I walk with him because He saved and loves me-- wouldn't you want to live your life by the man who was the first to love you, who saved your life? Who paid the ultimate price to call you friend?  

2. I knew that feeling of shame Jennie talked about, getting into trouble in the second grade. It's haunted me most of my life, that hot "feeling of being in trouble with the teacher". I realized that while we need to come face to face with how worthless we are-- wallowing in our shame and misery for too long disregards the work Christ has done. Repent doesn't only mean to be stricken with our nakedness, it means to turn around and keep walking. 

3. Two things I had to let go of in the challenge to discover what was keeping me back, were two extreme opposites. I realized there was a desperate war in me. Secretly, I want to be loved by a man, desperately. It's been on my head and heart a lot these days, as I have had helpless and nightly dreams of being loved and being held. But then... there was also my extreme bitterness towards them. 

I've been disrespected by a great deal of the men in my life-- the majority of them. I've never been enough for them. To the man that meant most in my life, I was not skinny enough, he told me this straight out and embarrassed me greatly over it in the name of wanting me to have a good life. To a guy who was like an older brother to me, I was not smart enough. Nothing I said could be met with acceptance-- only haughty scorning. To a guy that was my first and deepest affection, I was not cool enough, and he excluded me often in certain company. And those are only the three foremost examples in a lifetime of scorning. 

It was one of those complex conflicts in the heart that you hardly understand, the sort that makes us the fearsome and intricate creatures called women. 

I had both forgiving to do, and surrendering to do. God can handle how we think and feel, like Jennie said in her book. Like the Psalms are books of stark soul-bearing. He can lift the burden of loathing and loneliness, and turn this poison of both obsessive hatred and wanting, into a passion for living for Him-- trusting He'll do whatever brings the most love, joy, and peace out of my life. With a man's love or without. And today, that's without. And today, He is more than enough. 

{from behappy.me}

Also-- and this was big-- as I was listening to the video from Jennie, I realized that I too was holding back with my writing not necessarily because I was waiting on God anymore, but because I was terrified of criticism. Terrified. But if God wants to use my writing to encourage... shouldn't I trust that He can deal with the criticism? 

I know this study is just starting out-- but whether you're taking part or not, what has got deepened or done in your life this week? 

His Love is amazing! 

June 21: From my Journal

Life has not been kind to me. 

But as I look to him it can bubble up inside of me anyway. Love for life, and love for the people in it, around me. The snatches are powerful. 

Yesterday...

I love being a college student. I love history in my bright class room, I love the thrum in me as I see the past painting a story before my eyes, I love my Canadian instructor teaching American history, his smile, and occasionally frown, all combined. 

I love my entire class, even those who want to play High School and make silly cliques, and the snippy girl who is really lonely inside. I love my thought-provoking English class and the girls that I sit with, and the boy who ignores me and stares at my friend with dreamy eyes the size of saucers. 

I find the love causing me to leap to show it. I help my English instructor (who has no hands, only the beginnings of them) to erase the board, staying after class to do so. I sneak up behind a friend of mine and bound onto her in a hug, and go to lunch with her. I speak to a fellow from History that I normally wouldn't. I see burden in a girl's eyes, and gently prod her to speak. I listen to her sad story of loss and anxiety. I get her e-mail to help her in class, and give her a fervent hug, for which I get a raw and heartfelt, "Thank You."

I help another girl with her project. She has a smart mouth, and edge, but I love her too. 

"Perhaps I can use the movie Pocahontas as a primary source," one says. 

"I am certain you can convince the professor that Disney was there."

We giggle lightly. I love to giggle. 

The only book we can find in the entire library upon our tribe of topic is in the kid's section. And on the book's cover is a little white boy, donning some absurd kind of headdress. "Just put a funny hat on him," Caitlin remarks, "And he's an Indian all right."

I love our backwards society. I love the library. I love the kids section, full of light and laughter. I love life.I go to bed early, to keep myself on this roll of feeling good. 

And then today... 

I woke up. Took a shower. Numbly ate half a breakfast. And crawled right back into bed. 

The very thought of waking up and forcing myself to function was too monstrously insurmountable. 

I need healing. And healing takes time. 

But I'm going to stop beating myself up for the bad days, and trust that He'll take me through them. I'm going to stop beating myself up over the occasional B or C, because A's do not make me. Grades do not make me. Love does. 

I'm going to put my sword away, and keep raising that white flag like a banner of victory. Because when He is writing the story, I can be in today, and breathe today. And stop dying inside. 

Life has not been kind to me. But He always has been. And He always will be.

{Photo Via Pinterest}

Quotes to give you Hope today

Do you need hope today? I did. And my loving Father brought me to these.

How hope can come to be...

Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.

-Augustine



What hopes does...

"Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us."
-Samuel Smiles



Hope fills the afflicted soul with such inward joy and consolation, that it can laugh while tears are in the eye, sigh and sing all in a breath; it is called "The rejoicing of hope" (Hebrews 3:6).

-William Gurnall

But what to hope for?


The best we can hope for in this life is a knothole peek at the shining realities ahead. Yet a glimpse is enough. It's enough to convince our hearts that whatever sufferings and sorrows currently assail us aren't worthy of comparison to that which waits over the horizon.

-Joni Eareckson Tada

We hope for peeks into heaven. That is lovely. Yet, perhaps a bit vague? 

But we've a hope that need never be vague. We are loved by a Prince mad enough with love to die for us. And in time we will live in his enchanting land, with boundless happiness, boundless fulfillment, boundless friendship, boundless beauty, boundless love, and boundless Him. Forever.

'Till then? While we hope for that ultimate hope, we hope for knotholes along the way. We hope for glimpses of the boundless.

Heart to Heart: Do You Have A Shadow?

A shadow. Do you have one? I did, for a long, long time.



A shadow is something that casts a darkness upon the whole of your life, and wherever you go, you cannot escape it. Sometimes, you can ignore and stifle its existence so well that it lingers forever on unbeknownst to you.


My shadow began brewing as a little girl when I slowly came to realize that I was not like the others. I was bigger, not as dainty, and preferred to run and pick flowers than sit around and talk about boring things. And then I began to see that I was not treated like the other girls. The old women I knew would give my friends nicknames, and kiss their cheeks, and talk about how sweet they were, and give them gifts like cookies and tea sets and dolls.
They ignored me.

And the harder I tried to please impress, the harder was the rejection. I was excluded. So I returned to my natural timidity. I retreated deeper into it.

You can imagine the loneliness only got worse as I became a teenager. I was continually excluded, or befriended only to be left behind. But the icing on the cake was when a best friend abandoned me for a cooler crowd, and a boy pretended to like me only to weasel his way into my small group of friends and get close to a cleverer, prettier friend of mine. To be treated like my heart and time and love were things to be crumpled up and thrown away...

And the hurt burst into bloom as a ferocious hatred for the whole world. Because it had no place for me, and no person with room in their heart for me.



My shadow was simply a broken heart.

Perhaps you know that shadow too. Perhaps you have another shadow. Maybe it's sorrow, maybe it's bitterness, maybe it's envy. And years have passed, and perhaps you've managed to ignore it. But as I came to see one startling day- it remains.

When I decided that I had to get rid of this I picked up a pen and poured my heart out to God with tears, every detail, every time I was excluded and forgotten, every time that left me feeling worthless, ugly and heartbroken. I let Him deal with every single instance.


*I got a different perspective on things.

*I forgave others.

*I got forgiveness myself.

*I was shown unconditional love, a love that freed me to love others, selfless.

Don't ignore your shadow. Pick up the broken pieces of your heart and use them as ammunition. Do battle with the dark, unleashing His light and life, forgiveness and truth upon it.And that colossal cloud can be a thing crumpled up. And thrown away.

A Stirring Quote

Jonathan Edwards wrote this of a young woman he'd heard tell of, a young woman named Sara...


"They say there is a young lady in New Haven who is beloved of that Great Being who made and rules the world. They say that He fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight, and that she hardly cares for anything except to meditate on Him. If you present all the world to her, with the richest of its treasures, she disregards it. She is unmindful of any pain or affliction. She has a singular purity in her affections. You could not persuade her to compromise her true Love even if you would give her all the world. She possesses a wonderful sweetness, calmness, and kindness to those around her. She will sometimes go about from place to place, singing sweetly. She seems to be always full of joy and pleasure, and no one knows exactly why. She loves to be alone, walking in the fields and groves, and seems to have Someone invisible always conversing with her."

Jonathan would later marry Sara.

I long to be a Sara. My sister who has gone to heaven before me was named Sara.

"Sara" means princess.

Do you have any favorite quotes that thrill you with their poetry, inspire you with their vision, and uplift you with your truth? I'd love to hear them!

Princess Lessons: Heart to Heart

A Princess

A princess. Every girl wants to be one, doesn't she? Most of us dreamt of gorgeous dresses, sparkly crowns, enchanting dances, gallant princes, and all of those lovely things from pretty much the day of our birth. I was able to live this way through my stories for a long while, but it somehow never satisfied. In my heart of hearts, I needed to be a real princess.

A friend once said to me, "You're a daughter of the King of Kings! You can't get any closer to a princess than that!"

Fellow princesses, our crowning begins above and beyond all else, with our hearts. If we are daughters of the King, we can be princesses indeed!