Tag: Bible study

Monday Mess

~ Kristin ~ Leave a comment

My head is everywhere this morning.   I can’t quite hold a single thought captive.  I imagine this is what it is like to have ADHD — rapid fire ideas that bear no resemblance to one another.  I have been up for almost two hours and have not yet had one shred of continuity.

In fact, during my Bible study, I got up to order a replacement tray for the microwave — ours spontaneously broke in two over the weekend.  I got back to my study for a moment then remembered that I needed to message my doctor.  Got up to do that, then sat back down to 2 Thessalonians only to realize that my feet were cold and I probably needed socks.  While I was up getting socks, I checked and responded to a couple of emails.

If you give a mouse a cookie…

I think the problem is that my routine is slightly altered today.  You know how it is when you change one thing.  You decide to buy your coffee on the road instead of brewing a pot at home.  This means that you don’t go into the kitchen before your shower, so you don’t see your medicine sitting on the countertop.   Halfway through your makeup routine, you remember that you haven’t taken your medicine, so you stop applying your mascara and go to the kitchen.  While you are in the kitchen, you grab a snack to take to work, walk to the front room to find your purse, and before you know it, you’re sitting in your car in your slip with mascara on one eye.

So, I got out of bed, fed the dog, brewed some tea, mixed my smoothie, then broke my routine and wrote an email to my former colleagues.  That was the beginning of mayhem.  A few people responded which sent me down nostalgia lane, but the thought of an interview later today got me considering my wardrobe.  I noticed a bill I have to attend to today, and remembered I also want to spend an hour or two on an editing project.  I started and interrupted and restarted and interrupted and restarted and finally finished my Bible study and lit the candle on my desk.  I shuffled some papers around and then had to go to the bathroom.

Do you see what I mean?

So now, instead of sitting at my desk to blog, I am on the futon, which means I can’t really see out the window.  Chester, who usually sits under my desk warming my feet, keeps looking at me like I’ve lost my mind.  But that would imply that I knew where it was to begin with!!

It’s going to be an interesting day.  I think I’d better make a checklist:

  • finish blog
  • attend to previously mentioned bill
  • work on editing project
  • blow out candle
  • shower
  • dress for interview
  • swing by library
  • go to interview
  • drive to gym
  • workout
  • drive home
  • eat
  • sleep

With this kind of start to the day, I think I better just take a few minutes and pray — that God would put things in the proper order, that He would direct my steps, that He would focus me when I get behind the steering wheel today, and that He would allow me to attend to the people who cross my path.  I’m kind of a mess today; thankfully, He is not.  He knows the craziness in my head; He will order the details of my day.

Phew!

Isaiah 26:3

You keep [her] in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you,

because [she] trusts in you.

Worry?

~ Kristin ~ Leave a comment

So for the past couple of days I have been a little worried.  We had some expenses surface that were unexpected and the finances started to look, to me, a bit scary.  I may have uttered the words, “if I just got a full-time job, this would not be a big deal.”  As if in response to those words, I was plunked down on the couch with the most demanding aches I have had in quite a while.  I literally had to rest.

A still small voice was uttering:  Hey, little girl, I’ve got this.  You are not in charge.  I think I can handle your finances.  

Wait, what?  I don’t think I heard that.  Let me worry and grump around the house for a couple of days.  And I did.

Then, I opened my Bible study this morning.  I have to be honest and tell you that I haven’t done my regular Bible study in three days.  You see, our group got a little behind in our study, so we have altered our pace.  It is no longer necessary for me to do my homework every day.  So, I let it sit for a few days.  Should I make it very clear here that my few days of worrying coincide with my few days of not doing my regular Bible study?

I know, I know, it is not a magical formula.  But we are what we eat, you know?  If I take in the Word of God, it tends to center me on truth.  If I fail to take in the Word of God, the other ‘stuff’ in life tends to overwhelm me, crowding out the truth.  I start to feel like I have to carry all my problems on my own.

Anyway, I opened my Bible study this morning.  The whole point of the study was prayer — taking concerns to our Dad because He delights in giving us all good things.

More than usual, the study required that I look up verse after verse to make the point.  Luke 11:13 — the heavenly Father gives things to His children, Ephesians 1:3 — He has already blessed us with every spiritual blessing, 2 Peter 1:3 — His power has granted to us all things, and 2 Corinthians 9:8 — God is able to do this.  Now, I know this Bible study was published in 2014, but it wasn’t published this morning.  Yet God assembled this study to be just what I needed to see this morning. Because He knew where I would be in my thoughts this morning.  Because He knit me together in my mother’s womb.  And He knew about the expenses that, to us, were unexpected.  So, He probably has a plan for how they are going to work out.

Yup.  Schooled again.

Was it just yesterday that I wrote about the three time periods — now, a little while, and when Jesus is revealed?  Wasn’t I talking about how I was going to live my life for the little while I have until Jesus is revealed?  Do I want to spend it worrying?  Or do I want to climb up onto my Dad’s lap, tell Him the situation, and let Him reassure me: Hey, little girl, I’ve got this.  You are not in charge.  I think I can handle your finances.  

Yeah, that one.

Do not be afraid, little flock, because your Father delights to give you the kingdom.

Luke 12:32

Yay! Wednesday!!

~ Kristin ~ Leave a comment

It’s Wednesday.  You know what that means — Bible study.

I am not sure why I feel such a draw to this group, but I do.  Perhaps it’s the sequence of events that led me to these ladies (see “One Thing Leads to Another” if you are interested).  Maybe it’s the fact that this is the first group in Ann Arbor that is ‘mine’, not my husband’s.  Maybe it’s the fact that the actual study we are doing is pretty spot-on relevant to my life at the moment.  But I want you to know that after five weeks I am scheduling trips, appointments,  and (potential) work around it.

Twenty-one ladies if we are all there.  That’s a pretty large group, so I don’t know everyone yet.  There are typically 16-18 in attendance, and we had been keeping our discussion time all together in one large group, so some people didn’t speak (or have a turn to speak).  Last week we broke into two discussion groups and that allowed for more of the ladies to speak and be heard.  We decided to shuffle the groups each week so that we could all get to know one another.

What’s weird is that the group has been going for, I don’t know, eight or nine years and I don’t feel like a newbie or like I don’t belong.  I was welcomed right in as one of the family.  That’s it.  That’s why I am so drawn to this group.  They didn’t look at me suspiciously and wonder how I was going to change the group.  They embraced me.  Literally and figuratively.  And I like it!

I’m not the only one who is drawn to this group, of course.  Some of these ladies have to overcome enormous obstacles just to attend every week.  One is caring for her husband who has Alzheimer’s — she has to arrange for someone to come into the house and stay with him while she is gone.  Another had a major car accident last summer and is just now beginning to walk with just a cane; she has been there every week except the week of her brother’s funeral! Another has some kind of problem with her eyesight; she has to arrange a ride each week.  One dear woman drives herself, parks in the spot marked with handicapped sign, and then takes ten minutes with her walker to get to her designated spot around the table.  One has three school-aged children. You get the point.  These women are committed to getting to this group!

And you can almost feel the “Ahhhhhhhh!” each releases as she walks through the door and finds her place at the table.  Our leader makes a point to spread a tablecloth over the two plastic folding churchy banquet tables.  Sometimes someone brings a bouquet of flowers to put in the center.  One gal brings cookies or muffins to share; another brings some type of fruit.  We have decorative paper plates and mismatched napkins.  An urn of coffee and another of hot water are at the ready.

We pray collectively, with each given an opportunity to lift her burden or the burden of someone else.  We discuss the study we have completed through the week inserting relevant (or not so relevant) commentary.  We watch our video lesson.  We chat and hug and say goodbye until next week.

It’s a refueling station. Each woman determines to get herself there by 9:30 am so that she can leave refreshed 11:30 am, ready to face whatever is in her path for the next six days and twenty-two hours.  And although I am not facing much in my own path at the moment, I definitely need the refueling.  Ahhhhhhh….Wednesday.

Hebrews 10:24

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,

not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some,

but encouraging one another…