Thank you so much to Tina who commented in my Advent post that Arnold Ytreeide’s Advent books are coming back in print, thanks to the great folks at Kregel!

Tina gave me Arnold Ytreeide’s website, Jotham’s Journey, which I visited and read this wonderful news:

In October 2007, author Arnold Ytreeide signed a contract with Kregel Publications of Grand Rapids, Michigan, for the re-printing of Jotham’s Journey. It is Kregel’s intention to have the books available for the 2008 Christmas season.

Depending on sales of Jotham, the other books may also be re-printed in subsequent years. But if Kregel decides to end their involvement after Jotham, another publisher is already interested, so there’s still hope that Bartholomew, Tabitha and other books will follow.

In the meantime, watch for Jotham beginning in the summer of 2008 at major on-line booksellers as well as most Christian distributors. You can also watch for it on Kregel’s site.

We’d like to say a huge “Thanks!” to the thousands of people who have written, called, and even visited over the last several years as Jotham was looking for a new home. We appreciate so much the suggestions, praise, and encouragement. Finding a publisher for a book is not an easy task — every book is a huge risk for a publisher, so they’re very careful in selecting books for publication. Your letters and emails helped keep Jotham alive!

When these books are back in print, everybody go out and buy them so they’ll STAY in print! It is so awesome to have Advent stories like these that draw families together. As a mom with five children ranging in age from 2 to 11, we love having these books to help teach our kids about the true meaning of Christmas in new and interesting ways.

This year, we’re going to be reading Tabitha’s Travels, and I can’t WAIT to get started. I’m being honest here and telling you that we haven’t begun our 2007 Advent storytime yet. Our weeknights have been so busy and exhausting that we’re going to wait until this weekend.

But I DID go to Hobby Lobby a few days ago to pick up pink, purple, and white Advent candles, and I’ve got the Advent wreath set up. I’m looking forward to starting this new journey with Tabitha. I would love to hear what materials you’re using to help celebrate the joy of Christmas with your family this year.

I would never have heard of Jotham’s Journey if another mom in my hometown hadn’t shared it with me.

We had a blast this week discussing the homework. We all cracked up about Beth’s “gnat in the lip gloss” story.

She said she was leaving her house one day with serious ministry matters on her mind when a gnat landed smack dab on her lip gloss. “For a minute I thought I’d have to go back in the house for a spoon to dig it out,” she writes.

It’s true that trivial things can distract us from what’s important — and sometimes we just need to stop and pray! For us moms in the study, we talked about how the little distractions of daily life can get in the way of our main purpose of teaching and training our children to become more like Christ.

This week’s lesson focused on Daniel’s prayer in the 9th chapter of the book of Daniel. Wow — reading through that chapter several times reminded me what urgency there is to Daniel’s praying. He ends with, “O Lord, listen! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hear and act! For your sake, O my God, do not delay, because your city and your people bear your Name” (Daniel 9:19 NIV).

After studying and discussing this, I realized that in my own life, prayer often comes as a last resort, after I’ve mulled over a problem, worried for days about it, written in my journal, whined and complained to others about it — THEN I remember, “Oh yeah! I think I’ll pray about it!”

This lesson showed me brilliantly how I must pray FIRST.

How incredible that in the midst of Daniel’s prayer, the angel Gabriel appears to him and says, “Daniel, I have now come to give you insight and understanding. As soon as you began to pray, an answer was given, which I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed” (Daniel 9:22,23).

Wouldn’t you love it if a messenger from heaven would come tell you right away the insight you’re longing for in your prayers? Sometimes, when we pray, we can almost instantly feel in our hearts the answer is “yes” or “no,” yet other times, we can do nothing but wait. It may seem like God isn’t listening, and that our prayers are merely bouncing off the ceiling.

But God is listening! He chose to answer Daniel’s prayer right away through a direct message from Gabriel. And He’ll speak to our hearts too, if we do not give up.

Do you write your prayers down? Sometimes we pray so hard about something, but if it’s not written down, we can quickly forget the anguish our souls went through as we waited for God’s answer. I’ve kept journals for years, and it’s amusing to look back and see how hard I prayed for certain things (like a husband!). If my prayers weren’t written down, it would be easy for me to forget how God is the True Giver of all Good Gifts.

What are your prayers today? If you’re not going through this study with us, I encourage you to read through the 9th chapter of the book of Daniel and see how this earthly man who was “highly esteemed” in heaven prayed — and how God chose to answer his prayers.

Dear Lord, teach us how to pray! Our faith is so small at times, yet you’re always there, waiting patiently for us to come to you and share our concerns. Thank you that you listen to us. You know what’s best for us, even though we may not like what we’re suffering through at the moment. Thank you for the example Daniel gives us, in showing us how to pray with power and conviction. Amen.

Yesterday at church, our pastor reminded us that next Sunday begins the new Advent season in the Christian calendar. Are you prepared for celebrating Advent in your home?

This is the week to try to get an Advent wreath set up so you can start your family devotions on the first Sunday of Advent. I found this picture online, and you can see how simple it is.

You probably already have a wreath you can use — so just add pink and purple candles to your grocery list, as well as a big white candle to go in the center. You can also pick up a special-made Advent wreath at a Christian bookstore, which would help support those hard-working bookstore owners.

I’m not sure what we’ll use for our devotional this year. I may look around online, or we may use one of Arnold Ytreeides’s Advent books for families. The trilogy includes Jotham’s Journey, Bartholemew’s Passage and Tabitha’s Travels. We haven’t read Tabitha’s Travels yet, and it looks like a good one — it contains a story that continues each night, and you can supplement your devotional time by including songs, Scripture readings, or other activities appropriate for your kids’ age levels.

We’ve also started the tradition of praying over the families whose Christmas cards we receive. [Sidenote: It is getting SO expensive to mail out Christmas cards! I seriously thought about not doing it this year because the price of stamps has gone up again. But I’m just not ready to give up this traditional Christmas greeting, despite the cost.]

Does anyone know if Arnold Ytreeide has a website? When I did a search, I couldn’t find one — I just see other bloggers chatting about his books — and lots of people searching for used copies, since they’re out of print. Here are a few sites that mention recommended books to help celebrate Advent. Feel free to add your own:

Prattling Pastor’s Wife
LaCelle Family Ministries (focus on Jotham’s Journey)
Teaching Mom.com’s Advent Read-Aloud List
Library Thing
Victory Coaching’s newsletter contains reviews of all three Ytreeide Advent books

As I type this, I’m escaping for a few minutes into the clean world of letters on a keyboard. What a relief!

A terrible stomach bug has moved through our house. Ugh! One of those preschool bugs. All seven of us have caught it. Good thing I’m not contagious through your screen, or you’d hate me.

My two-year-old came down with it first. I had thought maybe she’d just eaten too much Halloween candy — but it turns out that was only the beginning of what has kept my washing machine in constant use!

At any rate, I’m determined to make it through this Bible study journey, and here we are on week 8.

A few of us have already started to discuss what we’re going to study next — after the Christmas break. We’re first browsing through our church’s media supplies — to see if they’ve already purchased a study we can use. (We really enjoyed Mary Kassian’s Conversation Peace last spring and would like something like this again.)

This week was a short session for us. We didn’t have any discussion of last week’s homework! All we did was watch the video because several of the women in our group had to leave early to be downstairs for the preschool costume parade (including me). But we decided this was the best option instead of canceling.

The homework in our workbooks focused on Daniel 7, exploring the four beasts from Daniel’s dream. I’m so glad we’re studying this book chapter by chapter because I wasn’t overwhelmed at all. I recognized the four kingdoms that the four beasts symbolize.

There is a neat chart on p.138 that we filled in, showing the four empires and how they’re symbolized in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream from Daniel 2 and later in Daniel’s vision in Daniel 7. The empires are:

Babylon — golden head, lion with eagle’s wings
Medo-Persian — silver chest and arms, lopsided bear
Grecian — bronze belly and thighs, leopard with wings
Roman — iron legs, beast with 10 horns

I really enjoyed this homework, especially toward the end of the week as Beth explained very clearly the difference between amillennialism, historic premillennialism, and dispensational premillennialism. I’ve never really understood these points of view in such detail, yet I LOVE using my brain to think through these things.

Our homework includes charts that help it make more sense, and I’m definitely going to keep this workbook handy as a tool to be able to teach this someday (maybe to teens). Beth makes the point again and again that brilliant scholars disagree on these issues, and we would be wise to study the different points of view on our own.

As the week wraps up, Beth says, “You can do this, Dear One! Ask God for focus and a supernatural ability to learn … Where the healthy mind is concerned, exercise prolongs sharpness. If Scripture is brain food, eschatology is an energy bar on steroids.”

I’m still processing what we learned from the video — the history lessons are so cool to me. I went through 12 years of public school and 6 years of a public university education — so I’ve never studied world history from a Biblical point of view. Oh, I wish something greater for my children!

The people we’re learning about now are leaders of the Gentile Empires that ruled over Israel, known as the Beautiful Land. So we’re studying Alexander the Great, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, as well as Cassander, Lysimachus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus. Some of these names are familiar to me from world history classes I’ve taken — yet I only learned what I needed to know to pass a test. Now that I’m learning about the impact they had on Christianity, I’m fascinated.

More than ever, I WISH I could read the Bible in its original languages. If you’re young and haven’t gone to college yet — PLEASE don’t waste those precious years when your only responsibility is to learn! Study Hebrew and Greek!

Someday, when my kids are older, this is what I plan to do. I’m not all that great with learning languages, but I loved learning Japanese, so why couldn’t I force my brain to learn how to read Hebrew and Greek? When I read my Japanese Bible, I’m amazed at the deeper meanings I can pick up from scripture. I know that my understanding of God’s Word, limited only to English, is like drinking a watered-down Coca-Cola (you know how it tastes when the ice melts!).

I want the REAL thing!

God, thank you for giving us a hunger and thirst for your Word that comes from your Holy Spirit, inhabiting our minds. Thank you for the joy we’ve found through this study, that has unlocked some of the secrets of the Scriptures. Give us the energy and health to finish up this journey through Daniel! We love you, Lord, and want to know your Word more so that we can know YOU more. (And please help this stomach bug to move quickly through our house — and be gone!) AMEN.

This session wrapped up the first half of our Daniel study. I’ve already learned so much!

I don’t really know what to expect in the second half, except that I know we’ll be focusing more on eschatology, a new word to my vocabulary. Eschatology is defined as “a branch of theology that deals with the final events in history, beliefs concerning death, the end of the world, and the ultimate destiny of mankind” (from p. 114 of the Daniel workbook).

What blew us all away in this session is that we learned Daniel was an old man, in his 80s, when he was sent to the lion’s den. Doesn’t this go against the image you have in your mind of a young, brown-haired Daniel sitting among a few gentle lions?

Beth made it very clear to us that the story of Daniel in the Lion’s Den is NOT some sweet little Sunday school story. These were hungry, vicious lions — and Daniel probably had white hair. How utterly cruel! I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a picture of a white-haired Daniel in the lion’s den.

Before we started the video, we discussed the homework from week 5, and several things stuck out to me. As we talked about being holy vessels, one lady made the point that it helps her to think of the Trinity when she’s thinking about us as being holy. She said, “God the Father created me, Jesus the Son saved me, and the Holy Spirit lives in me. The Trinity is what makes me holy.” Wow — I really liked that insight.

We also talked about how Caleb (Numbers 14:24) and Daniel both stuck out like sore thumbs in the cultures around them. We need to be the same way. Interestingly, in day four of the homework (p. 104), Beth asks, “As you’ve considered becoming Daniel-like in your own Babylon-world, in all honesty, whose opinions or attitudes have you dreaded most?

–Worldly individuals who might think you’ve lost your mind
–Mediocre Christians who might think you’ve gone too far”

We discussed how it’s sometimes a real struggle to be around other Christians, who think you’re sort of out there, a zealot. If you don’t watch the TV shows or see the movies your peers see (even those who sit right next to you at church), they might feel like you’re judgmental, boring, or too critical.

I admire those Christians who are strong enough to keep their eyes, ears, and minds away from destructive images. If you want a modern-day example, read Sallie’s wonderful post here about why she and her husband avoid watching TV. This is so inspiring!

A good portion of the video teaching in this session focused on prayer in the face of a crisis, as Daniel found himself in a somewhat URGENT situation! How do you respond when you go through something scary? Beth says we respond in one of three ways:

We PANIC (and make bad decisons).
We become PARALYZED (afraid to do anything).
We PRAY (ask God for divine strength).

I have repeated this so much in my head the past week — because I so often do the first two, instead of immediately seeking God for help. For example, just yesterday, I found myself terribly lost while driving to watch my daughter cheer for a football game. She had already gone on ahead in the school bus, and I somehow got majorly confused trying to read the hand-drawn map we’d been given.

It was raining, foggy, and I had two preschoolers asleep in my car. The minutes ticked by, and I couldn’t find the street I was supposed to turn on! The game was halfway over, and I was in the midst of panic when I finally called my husband for help. I didn’t know if I should give up completely and try to find my way back home — or keep driving. It turns out I was only about 15 minutes from the game — but when you’re lost, stuck in traffic in pouring down rain, and worried your little girl thinks you’re not going to show up, everything seems miserable.

I eventually made it to the game — five minutes before it ended. Then we had to turn right back around and drive home. So I spent a solid 3 and 1/2 hours in the car yesterday! But the words, “PANIC, BE PARALYZED, or PRAY” did shoot through my head. So this is a lesson I’ve taken to heart.

We repeated out loud one of my favorite verses:

May God bless you with a prayer-ful week!

I occasionally skim through my website visitor statistics to see who’s reading here and why they came.

It never ceases to amaze me that God may have sent a particular person my way to speak to them through my meager attempts to write what’s on my heart.

Sometimes, the search phrases are hilarious, and other times they make me cry.

Here’s a sampling of what moms out there are searching for online, ending up here, during the month of October 2007:

• verses to comfort and give hope to a mom of an alcoholic son
• mother writing letters from the heart to their teen daughters
• essay love between mom and daughter
• frustrated moms
• where can i find an article on a mothers love no matter how her child treats her
• is it ok to eat poppy seed dressing when youre pregnant
• blog neverending housework mom
• what to put in an october newsletter for moms of preschoolers
• how does a 14 year old girl make new friends
• snobby homeschool moms
• becoming a guest on the joyce meyer show
• who said youre only as happy as your unhappiest child?
• frazzled mom organization
• how does the mother in i stand here ironing try to make it right again
• is avonlea a real place?
• online mother teen daughter devotional

I know people probably end up here and go, “huh?” I’m not really a one-stop shop with all the answers, and there are millions of other sites full of more information than mine. All I really have to offer is what I’ve learned through my daily experiences of being a mother of five kids under 12. Maybe this is how I show my hard-earned gray hair — since in real-life, I try to hide it under highlights!

My favorite search here is “blog neverending housework mom.” HA! That’s me! My housework never ends — it’s like a treadmill I run every day. I would be in the pits of discouragement if it weren’t for FlyLady — so if you’re a “neverending housework mom,” maybe you can find some relief from FlyLady’s organizational methods. They’ve sure helped me!

It is truly a privilege to be able to take the journey that I’m on, attending my weekly Beth Moore Bible Study, and if I’m opening a small window for some soul out there stifled in a culture or a season of life with no opportunity like this, I pray my journey offers you a breath of fresh air. Attending Bible Study is the highlight of my week, and my joy is magnified just thinking that I get to come home and share all that I’ve learned with my family — and with you.

This fifth session taught me about an event I really haven’t thought much about. The banquet, hosted by Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson, Belshazzar. You’ve heard the expression, “the writing on the wall.” Well, now I know the night this took place was October 12, 539 BC.

On this night, Belshazzar hosted a huge banquet, “for a thousand of his nobles,” as well as his wives and concubines. At one point, he asked his servants to bring in the gold and silver goblets that had been stolen from the temple of God in Jerusalem. Then they all drank wine from them. Scripture says, “As they drank the wine, they praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone” (Daniel 5:4).

This was horrible what they did! They took that which was holy and used it for unholy purposes. Beth took us back to the scripture where Moses anointed these very goblets in Leviticus 8:10-11. They were consecrated to the Lord, set aside for holy purposes!

What happens next is truly awe-inspiring. Daniel 5:5-6 says, “Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote. His face turned pale and he was so frightened that his knees knocked together and his legs gave way.”

No one could interpret what God’s hand had written, except Daniel, who was brought in by the Queen Mother, possibly the wife of Nebuchadnezzar, who had not forgotten Daniel’s God. The hand had written: “MENE MENE TEKEL PARSIN,” which Daniel interpreted to mean that God had numbered the days of Belshazzar’s reign, he’d been weighed on the scales and found wanting, and his kingdom would be divided and given to the Medes and Persians.

And that very night, Belshazzar was assassinated, just like Daniel said! Darius the Mede rose to power in Babylon.

Beth talked to us about how our physical bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. We are holy! We’ve been bought at a price, the blood of Jesus Christ, and we are to treat ourselves as holy. She shared specifically about how we women are to dress ourselves modestly. We can still wear cute clothes! But we should choose items that present a modest image that honors God.

I was so happy to hear someone saying this. This is a GREAT study for teen girls. If you’re looking for scriptures for teens to remind them that they are consecrated and set apart from the culture, show them what happened when Belshazzar used the holy golden goblets of Israel for unholy purposes!

P.S. Aloha and Konnichiwa to my new Beth Moore Bible Study friends in Hawaii! 🙂

Before she adopted her sons, she made several trips to Russia, walking the halls of the overcrowded orphanages and seeing the beautiful children in desperate need of “forever families.”

She recently sent me a letter from the director of TEAR, which stands for The Evangelistic Association of Russia. I was shocked to learn that there are over 2,000 orphanages in Russia, accommodating over 1.5 million children! “Sadly, current statistics suggest that 97% of all Russian orphans have no place to go upon graduation from the orphanage. Despite their efforts to avoid it, many orphans are recruited by the Russian mafia and enslaved in prostitution and drug trafficking.”

Why are there so many orphans? According to TEAR, the population in Russia is “declining at an alarming rate because working age adults are dying from alcoholism and a failed health care system.”

What TEAR hopes to do is to find 2,000 churches who would be willing to “adopt” an entire orphanage. The arm of this ministry is called ROCK, which stands for Reaching Orphan Children for the Kingdom. What will this require?

“The partnering church or (TEAR’s ROCK Partner), will then send short-term mission teams into the orphanage to minister to the children and adults that so desperately need God’s love and our help. The TEAR ministry will enable these teams by providing governmental approval, translation resources, visas, and logistics support.”

I went to Moscow on a short-term mission trip with my church in the early 90s. It was in January, and the weather was frigid, but the warmth of the people was unlike anything I have ever experienced.

We ate dinner one night in the home of a Russian family, who were so generous, they gave me a hardback poetry book right off their bookshelf. Even now, I still own that book, and it reminds me to pray for the Russians. When my mother visited Russia several years ago, she had a similar experience. A family gave her a painting right off their wall, which now hangs in her kitchen!

I don’t use my blog as a place to make general public service announcements, but I feel compelled to share this with you all, since I’ve seen first-hand TEAR at work through my personal, real-life friend. God even allowed our family the privilege of watching her eldest Russian son be baptized, after he shared that he wanted to invite Jesus to live in his heart.

Here is my question for you today: what are you doing to build up God’s kingdom that will last into the next generation? If you’re not directly influencing the life of a child, what are you DOING with your time that is of lasting importance?

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Matthew 19:14).

Oh, this Bible Study keeps getting better every week. I’m absolutely amazed at how much we’re learning together. If anyone reading this knows Beth Moore personally, please give her a big hug from all of us preschool moms here in west Georgia.

I made it ON TIME this week to the study — actually, I was 15 minutes early! It was my turn to bring breakfast and help get the food table set up — hey, that works for getting me out the door earlier. I brought fruit, cheese, and cinnamon rolls — along with ruby red grapefruit juice. And of course I got the coffee brewing for us sleepyheads!

Our discussion focused on prayer this week, since we talked about what it was like for Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to pray together, hoping they wouldn’t be cut to pieces by Nebuchadnezzar, who was freaking out in a big way about his nightmares. He got so angry he wanted to kill all the wise men in the kingdom.

I’d never thought about how the other three felt when Daniel woke up saying God had answered their prayers through his dream. Why did God choose the mind of Daniel instead of the others? We went around the room sharing experiences where we felt like God spoke through someone else with a message for us.

I was sitting next to this sweet lady who taught 2nd grade for 26 years before retiring, and she shared a story that blew me away. She said when she was in college, she was dating a boy who wasn’t a Christian. One night, she started to feel convicted about it, and she prayed about what to do. She said, “I REALLY liked this boy. I mean REALLY. I didn’t want to stop dating him. So I prayed to God about it. I asked God to show me in ‘black and white’ if He didn’t want me to date this boy anymore.”

The next morning, she walked to the lobby of the boys’ dormitory to see this guy, and while she was waiting she saw a newspaper sitting on a side table. The paper was flipped open to Billy Graham’s question-answer column. A girl had written in, “I’m dating a guy who’s not a Christian. What do you think I should do?” Billy Graham answered with great power and conviction!

Isn’t that timing incredible? This lady said it was just like God was speaking to her directly, through Billy Graham, and it was in BLACK AND WHITE. I love this story. How different her life would have been if she hadn’t prayed that prayer and been perceptive to God’s answers. They truly are all around us.

The video lesson focused on Daniel chapter 3. King Nebuchadnezzar had built a 90-foot golden statue and wanted everyone in the kingdom to bow down to it. This was as tall as an 8-story building. How weird! We can’t even imagine that in our culture.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (Rack, Shack, and Benny for all you Veggie Tales parents) refused to bow to the statue, and they were thrown into the flaming furnace. The heat was so intense, the guards who threw them in were killed.

Now here is the really amazing part — Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did not burn when they were thrown into the hot furnace. They walked around unharmed, and there was a fourth “person” inside the furnace walking with them. Beth said the Hebrew translation implies this was a preincarnate appearance of Jesus Christ, though some scholars believe it could have been the angel Gabriel.

At any rate, all that burned was the rope that tied up their hands. When the three emerged back out of the fire, not a hair on their heads was singed, and they didn’t even smell like smoke.

Beth taught the bulk of the study on how we go through all kinds of fiery trials. Referring to Daniel 3:3-18, there are three different scenarios that can happen when Christians face fiery trials:

1) We’ll be delivered from the fire, and our faith will be built.
Beth compared this to finding out a suspicious lump turned out to be benign, or after prayer, it was miraculously GONE.

2) We can be delivered through the fire, and our faith is refined.
Using the cancer analogy, Beth says this may be like the patient finding out the cancer needs treatment, such as chemotherapy. God brings many people safely through this fiery trial.

3) We can be delivered by the fire into His arms, and our faith is perfected.
What would have happened if Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had burned to ashes? They would immediately have entered heaven, into the arms of Christ. This is what happens when a patient succumbs to disease; their faith becomes sight.

If we come through the fiery trial alive, will we smell like smoke? We will, if we insist on clinging to the past instead of moving forward and embracing the freedom that comes from Christ. Beth made the point that sometimes God will allow us to go through fiery trials so that our bonds can be burned — so that we’re set free.

The teaching was so powerful, yet several times during the video, we all laughed when Beth told a funny story. It feels great to laugh — most of us in the room live under so much stress with small children in the house! We love learning together — but it’s also great to just enjoy BEING together.

After the video, we prayed for each other. Always, I’m reminded of how much I have to be thankful for. There are so many people struggling through major illnesses, job changes, trouble with children … we really need the fellowship to pray for each other and build each other up.

I was thinking today about how this Bible study is kind of like a gym. You go to the gym to build up your muscles and increase your physical stamina. When you do this, endorphins are released that make you feel good — and your health is better.

With our Bible study, we’re coming together to build up our spirits, increase our knowledge of God’s Word, and increase our perseverance to head back out into the world as women of faith. It feels wonderful to get together — and we can’t be spiritual wimps if we’re going to survive in our modern-day cultural Babylon.

Each of us has our own sphere of influence. Most of us still have young children in the house, but some of the women in our group are grandmothers and are directly influencing two generations. Will we be wise women and use our toned-up spiritual muscles to help spread the Gospel? Because of this Daniel study, I know at least the women in THIS group will.

Thank you, Lord, for giving us women opportunities to get together to grow spiritually and learn more about your Word. Thank you for the legacy of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. You saved them from the fire, and we know you’ll also refine us from whatever fiery trial we’re going through. Give us wisdom, Lord! Sometimes we feel so spent, as if we’ve given everything away. Only you can refresh our spirits. We praise you for your Word that knows no boundaries. Amen.

We started our new Beth Moore Bible study at church last week, and I’m so excited. At last, I’ve found a new direction for this blog, something I’ve prayed about all summer. Instead of popping in daily to chat like I’ve done the past two years, my plan now is to write a weekly devotional reflecting on what I’ve learned. I hope you’ll join the journey with me!

We’re studying Daniel. If you’ve gone through this before, what did you think? If you’d like to join me here through watching the DVD and studying on your own, that would be great. Let’s go!

Looking Back
In my early 20s, I went to live in Japan to teach English. I worked for a Japanese Christian church and stayed with a Japanese family my first year there.

After living overseas for about six months, I began to wonder what my next step should be. Did God want me to spend the rest of my life in Japan, as a single career missionary and teacher? If so, why did I have such a strong desire to get married and have children? Did He want me to come home and work or go back to school?

As I began to pray deeply about this matter, a certain school came into my mind. I sent off for information about this school, a Bible college near my home state, which offered several programs for graduate students. (This is before we could research online!)

When the packet from the school arrived, I tore open the manila envelope and gazed longingly at the glossy pictures inside. Young men and women sitting under trees, Bibles open, intensely studying the Word of God. My heart beat faster thinking how wonderful it would be to delve into Hebrew and Greek, gaining a greater understanding of the Bible’s original languages. I couldn’t imagine anything more exciting than going to this school!

Yet when I looked into the cost of tuition, I didn’t see how I could pay for it. I didn’t want to ask my parents for money, and I didn’t feel like I had anything unique to offer to apply for a scholarship. I was just one of thousands of confused 20-somethings, wondering what the next step of my life should be.

So instead of applying to this Bible college, I decided to stay in Japan another year and work on saving money. I shifted my schedule around, allowing me to take on a few higher-paying teaching jobs, and I visited a Japanese university that offered an Asian studies program for foreign students.

Based on my application and interview, this school offered me a teaching assistantship so my tuition was paid for. It was an incredible opportunity. God allowed me to go to school – just like I’d prayed for! But instead of studying the Bible on an American campus, I was studying Japanese culture, art, history, and language at a university in Japan.

Taking the Next Step
By the time I felt sure God was leading me back to the U.S. I was engaged to be married in a few months (another long story.) Our first year of marriage, I attended graduate school full-time (along with my husband), and I worked two jobs to help pay for it – writing articles for the campus newspaper and working in marketing for the university publisher.

Years later, I’m at LAST able to study the Bible intensely like I’ve always dreamed of. Instead of sitting under trees on a gorgeous campus in my early 20s, I’m now in my late 30s, a busy mother and wife, studying on my kitchen table and in a classroom at church. I watch my teacher on video, a dynamic Texan woman who makes me laugh and cry with her powerful testimony.

Instead of serving God on an overseas mission field, here I am, blogging away. Some of you are reading this on a computer thousands of miles from me. Hello! Bonjour! Konnichiwa! Guten Tag! Within the walls of my own home, I have five little souls who hear me share the excitement daily. Lord willing, I want to raise a new generation of Daniels!

Everyone says you get out of Bible study what you put into it. This would be a very shallow experience if I only went to the meetings, sat through the videos, then did nothing on my own. What makes this study so rich is the one-on-one time I spend with the Holy Spirit, as I encounter Him, my Teacher, in my individual devotional time.

In the introduction to Daniel, Beth Moore says, “If The Patriarchs was a camel ride, this one … is a rocket ride — with the windows open.” She later writes, “The wind of the Holy Spirit blows so hard through some of these scriptures, you may have to re-fix your hair.”

Ready to Blast Off!
Years and years have gone by since I first prayed, “Lord, please open the doors for me to study Your Word!” The past decade I’ve spent bearing and nursing children has consumed me and kept me so physically exhausted, I’ve had to prop my eyelids open to study.

And to be honest, I’ve never made it through a whole Beth Moore study intact – I’ve always gotten overwhelmed with the busy-ness of life, sick children who’ve kept me at home and away from the fellowship, and distractions.

Will you pray for me? I’m starting out with such dreams of completing all the homework and attending every session for the next 12 weeks. My life is so hectic right now — yet I don’t want to give up on this!

Connecting Hearts
What are you going through now? Are you able to get some Bible study in, somehow, someway? Ask God to open up your schedule so that you can. You’ll impact every person who comes into contact with you. This is truly exciting!

Lord, as moms, we’re busy women. We’re tired! We can’t get up early like we want to because we were up late last night feeding the baby or nursing the sick. We wake up in the morning and face mountains of laundry and piles of dishes. Our to-do list includes everything but spending time with you. Help us, Lord! Give us energy and time. Deepen our joy and longing to spend time with you. Amen.

I want to thank the devotional writing team at Laced With Grace for honoring Mom 2 Mom Connection this week as their featured blog. That was very nice!

Since this is my last week of blogging for the summer, but maybe longer, this was very encouraging to me. (Thank you, sweet Iris!)