Hey, my Dear Siestas! It’s time for our second gathering of SSBS3! As promised, below are your written instructions in case you have trouble with the video greeting. REMEMBER, your comments to this post are meant to come AFTER your small group gathering or your solo experience to tell us how your time went. We hope all of you participating will check back in with a comment at some point over the next several days. (One leader checks in per group and each solo participant checks in.) This is part of the accountability process and will immensely help you stay with it through the very last page. As always, please put your city at the beginning of your comment. Thanks so much for joining in!
Summer Siesta Bible Study – Week 2 from LPV on Vimeo.
Your discussions in this gathering will revolve around different points in your homework. Two from Week One. Two from Week Two:
1. Look back at the middle of page 12 where Kelly had us look up Deuteronomy 23 and Judges 3 to get some background on the Moabites. Read Deuteronomy 23:3-5 together if you’re not watching this as a small group. In your small group, I want you to talk about a few things that have happened in your lives that Satan would love to use to curse you. You can think of it conceptually more than literally if that helps. At the end of class today, I want you to claim that fifth verse together in prayer and believe God to turn those curses into blessings!
2. Turn to the middle of Week One, to the bottom of p.21 and the top of p.22. I loved Kelly’s discussion about her friend “weeping forward.” What do you think that means? Several of you share a season in your life when you feel like you wept forward and several others might consider sharing a season in your life when you wept backward. Most of us have done both at some point in our lives.
The next two are from Week Two:
3. OK, Day Two has a portion that is vintage Kelly Minter and one reason why I love her writing so much. Look at the second paragraph on p.42 where she tells about her sister, Megan. If you were writing a novel that was secretly about yourself right now and right in this season and you had to name it in the form of a question, what would it be?
4. Turn to p.45 and review the part of your homework concerning Psalm 126. Please read the psalm together then discuss your answers to the “Personal Response” question: Practically speaking, how can you sow in your weeping? Don’t miss how much this section has to do with your second discussion question today.
In closing, one of you read the Elizabeth Barrett Browning quote at the end. Let it lead you into prayer and don’t forget to claim those blessings from our first discussion question today!
For all of you participating in the fellowship meal, consider the recipes on pages 62-63 and either do them or some Italian equivalent.
I am so happy to study with you! Stay in the Word and I’ll see you in two more weeks!
Aurora, IL
Heidi, Angie, Joanna and Me (Becky). A bunch of 20-somethings.
We are a couple of weeks behind, as well, but we are LOVING the study. I’ve made both of the menus for the two weeks, and they were delish. One of the girls brought tiramisu tonight to go with the italian dish. LOVED it. And love the dear girl who brought it (Joanna).
We discussed the whole “being honest with God” thing quite a bit. Talked about looking to the Psalms to help us with that. One girl talked about how Ruth’s work ethic was convicting for her. We had a great night. Excited to start week 3!!
April in Hume, CA
We had our 3rd meeting today (we’re meeting every week and a little behind). Today was fantastic, so blessed by the ladies I’m meeting with. The love, honesty and trust that we have is a gift from the Lord.
Great conversation today about weeping forward (and backward) and how those two things can even bounce back and forth at times. Encouraged by the grace of our God.
Thank you Kelly and Beth for leading us on this journey through Ruth, we are BLESSED!
Clare, MI Clare Christ Fellowship DOZ’s
I have been naughty by not writing my update immediately, but I have good reason. I tried to post some pictures when I wrote my first update on this weeks study and lost a very decriptive post I was writing, so I got frustrated and quit. So I am just now getting back to this. Sorry!
My group of 7 ladies met on the 19th of July. We had a wonderful time of eating and catching up with our bible study answers and ended up meeting for 4 hours. Our group all had many examples of weeping forward and backward. We also had some interesting questions that described our lives. Our groups favorite came from Amber who asked, “If I am always running in place on this treadmill of life, why am I still fat?” I am sure you all can understand all the deep spiritual insights we could get from that question. 😉
We also had some very precious moments as we talked of our excitement and great joy we have had, by having Angie in our group this year, after she had been living a life regardless of God for the last 5 years, she has come back and is celebrating God’s mercy and grace in her life! Praise the Lord!!
We also have a new Christian in our group, Kalley, whose excitement for learning and growing in the Lord is contagious. Kalley discussed some of her insecurities as a Christian, especially with praying outloud in group situations. On wednesday the 28th of July, at our churches midweek service our pastor asked if someone who doesn’t normally pray outloud felt led to close us in prayer. A few seconds later, Kalley’s voice piped in with a very sweet, humble, and annointed prayer! It was so annointed I (Valerie) had goosebumps all over and Bethany was in tears next to me! It was awesome to see that in a week and a half from our group meeting, she was taking steps to obey the Holy Spirit’s leading!
Another exciting thing we discussed in out meeting was God’s amazing grace! I had just gotten back from a Christian family camp, where four kids were struck by lightning and lived with no severe injuries to witness to the world God’s great grace and mercy and the power of prayer!
We finished our bible study by celebrating with Vangie, by putting on ring pops (suckers) and taking a few group pictures, which I was going to add to this post, however, I can not figure out how. so if anybody actually reads this and knows how, please post! Thank you and from the Clare, Michigan Daughters of Zion summer siesta bible study group to all of you siesta’s out there, we love you!
We met on Tuesday, July 27th, we had 4 in attendance and dined with Kelly’s Tomato Pasta recipe. It was fabulous. Lots going on with our missing pals, a baby on the way, an illness and etc.
All in all this was one of our best gatherings I think because we really enjoyed discussing Ruth’s redemption. We all need Gods redemption and while non of us can imagine being on that threshing floor or even speaking once we got there we admire Ruth for her courage and obedience.
We have all been moved to consider how we deal with things in this study. We have chosen to slow down and just do session 5 over the next two weeks and discuss it in greater detail than we have the other sessions. Should be good.
Rosa, flying solo, Northeast TX, single, mid-30’s
1. I think being diagnosed with lupus at 20 could be seen as a curse, but once I got past the reality of it all, and can look back, I can see God’s love and mercy in the ways that He’s provided for me and for the attitude He’s given me.
2. Weeping forward is mourning whatever it may be that is a loss, but not staying there. Any significant loss should be mourned, but I know for me I can’t stay there, life’s too miserable. You just keep doing what God calls you to do,even if it’s just a little.
3. Seriously, All of this is Changing Now?!
4.Sowing in weeping is about trusting God, even if that seems impossible. It’s about giving him the pieces, and letting him put them together, sometimes, most of the time, in a way that you didn’t expect them to fit.
Highlands Ranch, Colorado, 4 ladies meeting in my home, except we have only been able to get together the first time and have caught up over the phone with each other for the second and third. A couple of us have been out of town and the others have had typical hectic summer schedules with young ones! Anyway we all have it on our books to meet for the last meeting!
We are all enjoying this study on Ruth! It is amazing how it is touching each of us in different ways according to what is going on in our lives right now! I think the need for a redeemer in our lives is as powerful in our lives now as it was the day we received the Lord in our hearts!! This is a beautiful picture of our loving Lord!
London, Englad
Am behind, but am posting to help me with accountability! Thank you to Beth and LPM Blog for such an inspiring and encouraging study and a way to participate solo! This WORD is feeding me over here far from home!! And I am thankful!!
1) Difficult marriage and mental health issues are things I am praying God will change to blessings in my life!
2) Weeping forward means to trust God while looking (and acting) to the future. Weeping backward means to me longing for the past or “for Egypt” . . . for what seems to have been better than now. I am now trying to weep forward in a challenging marriage.
3) Why God, isn’t this marriage working? Where have You been for the 10 years of our marriage, God?
4) I will sow in my weeping by seeking God’s will for me and our marriage here and now in London.
Purcellville, VA
Same 2 of us. . . .
Just catching up with our attendance.
We are getting to know each other more intimately than in our church K-group of maybe 20.
1.Curse is confidential.
2.Both of us have been weeping forward.
3.Question of my life. . .When is my breakthrough? Not to be confused with when is my break thourgh 😛
4. I am sowing in my weeping for breaking the cycle of abuse in two generations of families. . . my son will have a stronger foundation and a better understanding of boundaries as he grows to become a man of God! In the long run. . . it will be worth every last tear and every moment of social isolation.
Dear Beth, Please count me in as one of the ones who started and completed! I had some technical difficulties this summer, but followed along and completed the studies and assignments on time. 🙂
1. There are too many to name!
There it is in print……”..but the LORD your God turned the curse into a blessing for you because the LORD your God loves you.”
2. I have weeped backwards for some of my choices and teh consequences and for relationships I didn’t have and/or dont have in my present. I’m trying to weep forward now in time of work situatuions with leadership that isn’t respected and family transitions with family members who only know attacking, grudge-holding, spiteful actions during such times.
3. Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? Which? Will/ Can? A smorgasgord of questions. 🙂
Do you agree that answers are the easy part and that questions raise the doubt?
Will I follow hard after Him and love Him with my heart, body and mind?
What will I make out of the next chapter of my life?
4. How can I sow in my weekping? (links to #2)
After reading the quote at the end, I claim the blessing from question #1. 🙂
Just to let you know, Beth, I did not follow through to do the Bible Study this summer as several things seemed to always get in the way. Anyway … it is now September and I have found that your posts are still up on the website and I have just finished the first 2 weeks and have to say this is a wonderful study.
Although I have been deeply blessed in my life, one of my curses has been a daughter that has chosen to walk away from her beliefs. I am praying and weeping daily that she will (through some believer coming into her life or God causing something to happen in her life) return to her former walk with Him. As I am weeping, I am often (though not on a ‘bugging’ sense reminding her of all the things God has blessed our family with.
I am amazed at the lessons Ruth has for all of us, regardless of our stage in life.
Aurora, IL
Heidi, Angie, Joanna and Me (Becky). A bunch of 20-somethings.
We are a couple of weeks behind, as well, but we are LOVING the study. I’ve made both of the menus for the two weeks, and they were delish. One of the girls brought tiramisu tonight to go with the italian dish. LOVED it. And love the dear girl who brought it (Joanna).
We discussed the whole “being honest with God” thing quite a bit. Talked about looking to the Psalms to help us with that. One girl talked about how Ruth’s work ethic was convicting for her. We had a great night. Excited to start week 3!!