Welcome, everybody! We are ecstatic that you are joining us for Bible study this summer! Please read the following instructions quickly but carefully then watch the video. On each of our summer Bible study posts, I’ll always write out the interactives just in case you can’t get the video to work. OK, Sisters! Here goes!
BEFORE LEAVING A COMMENT: PLEASE READ ALL WRITTEN INSTRUCTIONS AND WATCH THE VIDEO IF AT ALL POSSIBLE . ALL COMMENTS ARE MEANT TO BE IN RESPONSE TO TODAY’S INTERACTIVES. Your comment today is particularly important because it also serves as your registration for the summer experience.
UNLIKE PREVIOUS YEARS, WE ARE ASKING FOR EVERYONE PARTICIPATING TO LEAVE A COMMENT RATHER THAN THE GROUP LEADER LEAVING ONE ON BEHALF OF ALL. It tended to be too confusing. Your comment to each of the 4 blog posts this summer is your interaction with us here in our blog community. (I know some of this seems redundant but we get lots of questions about these kinds of details so we’re just trying to make sure we’ve covered as much as possible.)
If you are in a SMALL GROUP: you will share your responses to all of the interactives with one another in your gathering. Then, when you come back to make your comment to this post, you will choose one of the questions to answer here. You can answer more if you desire but we are only “requiring” you to respond to one.
If you are GOING SOLO: please respond succinctly to each of the interactives. The whole community will in effect become your group and sharing your answers will be part of the activity and accountability. It will make the summer experience immensely richer for you.
ALL PARTICIPANTS identify yourselves in your comments to this post by: First Name, city, state, and country if not the USA and whether you are participating with a small group or going solo, then respond to your interactives. Here’s a sample comment for our summer Bible study to give you a paradigm:
Cheryl, Shreveport, LA/small group: #3 … (her response to the third question will be written here. Note that she is participating in a small group so, since she’s already answered each of the questions in her gathering, she only needs to respond to one here. If she’d gone solo, she’d answer all of them here.)
1. A fun one: What title to a popular song – from any decade you wish – best captures you right now? (It can be serious or ridiculous.)
2. Write one sentence describing something about your present season – your right-here-and-now – that makes it unique. Life changes constantly. What is distinct about this particular season?
3. In one sentence, what is one thing you wish your sisters in Christ would know about you sooner that often doesn’t come out in your relationships till later? Complete this sentence: “I wish my sisters in Christ knew that I…”
4. *Optional: Make a one-sentence comment regarding anything in the video devotional that resonated with you.
OK, Sisters! Have Weeks One and Two of Gideon completed by our next gathering in two weeks on June 25th! We are so happy to have you here and to serve you.
Summer Gideon Study 2013 from LPV on Vimeo.
Joan, Portage, MI small group…#1 Crazy…
Karen, Avon, OH/small group
#1: “Joy & Pain” by Maze & Frankie Beverly
#2: A BitterSweet New Normal ~ Love & loss: April of 2012, our Lord brought my/His precious daughter Home (as a college freshman following a heart transplant) … I ache for her while praising God for her eternal life with Him in Paradise, His Love, the fact that He knows my pain (He gave His only begotten Son for my only begotten daughter/child) & His assurance that He’s got me … I believe God for healing, Isaiah 43:19, beauty for ashes, strength & guidance to follow Him forward.
(How’s THAT for one (run-onnnnn) sentence? ☺ Please forgive me. I’ve tearfully tried to describe this season succinctly to no avail. If I don’t post this now as is, I won’t. I’ll do better next time.).
Thank you for sharing…You are in my prayers.
You are a blessing, thank you. May God bless you as well.
You are on my heart, in my thoughts and I am praying for you.What a blessing it is to have the assurance that your sweet baby girl is in the arms of your merciful loving Jesus.
Such precious encouragement, thank you. Praying for you & yours as well.
My heart is very tender for you. I will be praying for you as God heals your heart. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for your sweet words & prayers. My prayers are with you too.
Soozi, Lexington, KY/small group, #2 – Relatively new marriage & state/city, new job.
1. Help
2. I feel stretched and torn between family members needs and work, knowing what to let go of and what to focus on.
3. I wish sisters on Christ knew that I had cancer Hodgkins in 1980 and have been blessed with total healing
1. Crazy
2. Season of total uncertainty as to how I will make it, where I will live, and feeling abandoned but knowing it is a lie.
3. I wish that people knew that I am friendly, just reserved.
Melinda Syracuse, NY, going solo
1. “You Can All Join In ” Traffic
2. I am getting ready to embark on Nursing school a dream in the making for 16 years.
3. I wish my sisters in Christ knew that I struggle with fear.
4. It is ironic that Beth looked up “Summer” in the Bible. I ‘ve been thinking about summer and what it maens or the possibilites of summer.
Nicole Drum, Overland Park, KS
1. Semi-Charmed Life
2. My present season is all about coming into my place in the world–professionally, emotionally, etc.–and that is a busy, stressful thing.
3. I wish that my sisters in Christ knew that I am always, constantly, endlessly struggling with feeling like I have value and that anyone actually likes me.
1. I will survive!
2. Hubby has new job, moved to new house, at home with my three kids for the summer (one of my three had a liver transplant 2yrs go at 1yr old..anyways still lots of medical stress and developmentally trying to catch her up..I’m tired)
3. I wish everyone would know that I am a loyal friend
Bev – Houston TX – going solo
1. “God’s Great Dance Floor” (Let the Future Begin!) from Passion 2013
2. Season of feeling pulled in different directions – winding down a teaching career in a few years and waiting for the Lord has planned for us
3, I wish people knew that I’m very cautious about making friends and relationships. So many hurts from people close that I take time to discern.
1. Redeemed
2. In this season I am trying to get over my comfort zone with my business
3. I wish my sisters in Christ knew that I am really insecure, feel very small and easily intimated
Danell, Roseburg, Or/group
2. We are remodeling a house we bought in March and trying to get moved in at the end of the month.
Liz from OH/ solo
1. Blessed Be Your Name
2. Season of giving up control – stretching me to Let Go.
3. I wish my sisters in Christ knew that I don’t always have it together and sometimes I need someone to lean on.
1.How He Loves
2.preparing to take a terrifing step in faith that only God’s strength can enable
3.how much I crave quiet
4.God is hitting me in the head with my banana
Susan, VA
1. Precious and Few
2. I am in a season of healing from heartbreak
3. I would want my sisters to know life changes in a second, but that we have a God who is faithful, and He remains steadfast, true, and is a stronghold we can rely on, even if others fail us!
1. Unforgettable
2. 5 beautiful precious grandchildren age 3-12. Enjoying my job these days, and looking forward to going to FL w/my whole family in July. (about 20 people)
3. Who I am and who I want to be.
Katherine, The Woodlands, TX / Solo
1. I Fall to Pieces
2. The kids will both be in preschool in the fall, so much of what I thought was stable is shifting, peace is elusive, and I am desperate for change.
3. I wish my sisters in Christ knew that I am quiet, but I really do want to connect.
4. We have to have eyes to see the fruit that God is ripening in our lives. If we don’t deliberately open our eyes to it, the enemy will steal it.
Cathy,Rhinebeck,NY,going solo
#1 Here Comes the Sun
#2 I just got used to my son being at college and now we are
searching for a college for my daughter.
#3 I wish my sisters in Christ knew that I struggle with anxiety.
Vanessa – Johnson City, TN – solo
1. Picking one is too hard…:) SO, Here by Rascal Flats; Good Morning by Mandisa and This is the Stuff by Francesca Battistelli
2. My current season is enjoying being at the beginning of a new church start. Also, helping with the youth group and watching them grow. While watching our last two head to college this fall.
3. I wish my sisters in Christ knew that I…enjoy making friends but am reserved when getting to know someone.
4. Summer Fruit – As Christians our fruits should show to others. Plant the seeds, water with the word, when ripe harvest!
Dawn
Dorr/Michigan
Solo
1. After God’s own heart… Kim Boyce
2. Loving being a new grandma and learning to enjoy and adjust to the empty nest with my hubby.
3. I have a heart for people that think they are too lost for God to use them, I used to be one of those people.
4.Watching something to ripen for the plucking that we have been sowing. And we need to get our shouting back on!! 🙂
going solo and still waiting for the Gideon book in the mail!
1)In your Arms-by Meredith Andrews
2)In this season I am facing raising my two teenage daughters alone as my husband just left us.
3)I wish my sisters in Christ could see that I am not just a survivor, but because of my Father in heaven I am an over-comer and He is having the victory in my life!
I am sure you will prove it to be so! Praying for you during this difficult time. Let The Lord be enough, because He is! how about You’re Not Alone by Meredith?! That one always strengthened me when I felt that I was.
Understanding the fear and various other emotions running through you right now. Praying earnestly for you and assuring you that you will get through this. God is faithful to never leave you or forsake you. He will renew your strength, and He will provide in amazing ways. Stay with Him, sweet sister!
Bonnie B! Florence, Colorado
Urgent Prayer need here in Colorado…just as our Gideon study was officially started FIRES broke out all around us yesterday…Tuesday 6/11/13.
The Royal Gorge Fire as of yesterday has lost 20 buildings and evacuated 818 Inmates from the Territorial Correction Facility…Old Mac.
The Black Forrest Fire now…Wednesday 6/13/13…is the #1 FIRE in the Nation and has eclipsed last years Fire…the Waldo Canyon Fire…650 homes have been lost! Beth was here with us last year…what a blessing and such a timely Word!!!
Thank you for including us in your Prayer!!!
We are praying!
Thank you so much!!!
Bonnie, I am praying for God to reign and rain down and help the firefighters put out the fires!!! In Jesus’s name I pray! Amen!
Thank you so much!!!
The Lord is Good…we are expected to get some rain today!!!
Update…Royal Gorge Fire is 40% contained and roads are back opened!!!
Black Forrest Fire is 5% contained and sadly 2 dead and 376 homes lost. Our Firefighters have done an Awesome Job…we deeply appreciate all their hard work!!!
Beckie – Florence, SC – solo
1. Summertime’s Calling Me
2. I am in a season of learning how much I really do not know.
3. I wish my sisters in Christ knew how much I like to talk.
4. I wrote in the front of my workbook, “faithful to his word and watch very carefully for the fruit of something to ripen that you have sown!”
1. God will make a way.
2. I am in the season of storms. I truly believe the the devil works over-time when God has something planned. The devil is working big time right now.
3. I wish my sisters in Christ knew that I am an extremely shy person.
Ashlie McDonald-SLC, UT
I am a part of a small group of about 10 women. I don’t know how many of the other ones will come on here and write a comment, because the majority of the women don’t follow the blog. A few of us do and I think those women will come on here and post.
Q #2-
What makes my season unique right now is that right now I feel like God is wanting me to trust Him more than I ever have through the situations he is allowing me to go through with mission trips, relationships, family situations, etc. I just feel like He is asking me to JUMP! in and trust even when I am scared, want to control, etc. Jesus wants to be my everything. I tend to put a lot in people and security and I really feel like God is wanting me to let that all go!!!!
1. take My Life and let it be consecrated… 2. I am an empty nester and trying to find God’s purpose for my life. 3.I have insecurities like everyone else and need encouragement also
Hang in there Doris. God does work miracles and He is still in control.
Joyce, Lebanon, Tenn. Solo
1. Fall Afresh
2. season of quite and rest
3. I wish my sisters in Christ knew that my hearts greatest desires.
4. Summer fruit ripe and ready for picking. Seeds sown, I have forgotten some seeds sown along time ago that I gave up on. Could I still some day see the things happen?
Christie, Tulsa, OK studying with another friend. #2- My life season is unique because I just had another son, so learning to balance life with a two year old and a newborn.
Beth Tulsa, Ok.
#1 Wait and see
Jennie from Granite Bay Caliornia. Solo
1. God I need you now!
2. Season of change, life feels so so hard and scary
3. What I wish my sisters in Christ knew… That I long to know and
Have Godly women as close friends.
Diane, Peoria IL and Cary NC – small group with my BFF Pat.
1.) “Stuck in the Middle With You” by Stealer’s Wheel
Eniola, Lagos, Nigeria/ Solo
1. While I’m Waiting
2. A season of delighting in God’s Word. God is really opening up His word to my heart and bringing me into a revelation of His great love for me!
3. I wish my sisters in Christ knew that I struggle to be open and vulnerable
4. To harvest fruit this summer! To recognize the fruit.
Darlene – Monroe, GA, solo
1) Defining Moment – Newsong
2) Extended family troubles/blessings
3) I wish my sisters in Christ would realize sooner rather than later that I fiercely loyal.
4) I have two pieces of fruit that I would be thrilled to pluck this summer if God chooses to ripen it. Please help me to be able to recognize them LORD! Love you Beth & Priscilla!!!
Debra – Corvallis Oregon – Solo kind of me and my daughter is doing the study together.
1. First song that came to mind was Here we go again.
2. My season is starting over raising children after being empty nesters for a few years. We were called to adopt two boys with special needs.
3. Would like my sisters in Christ to know that I am a friendly person it is just that I have lots on my mind with the boys and making sure that they are alright and not misbehaving. People still judge you as a parent with your child misbehaves not realizing that that they have a hidden disability
1. Rebuild Me
2. I am in a season where life is full of the uncharted; thank Goodness God knows the path.
3. I wish my sisters knew that I really do wish I could figure out how to be a single mom.
4. The harvesting of fruit this summer. Oh, Lord, let it be so.
May I recommend the book “My Single Mom Life” by Angela Thomas. It blessed my socks off long ago and I have shared it with many women since. It will bless you, I just know it.
Becky, Morganton NC, small group
2. I have two boys (3 and 4 years old) and I am trying to balance serving the body and serving at home and not feeling guilty when I have to say no to outside things that I would like to help with but can’t because of putting my family first.
1. Need you Now by Plumb
Hey partner! We’re gonna have a great summer study!
Sarah, Chocowinity, NC – Small Group:#3…I wish my sisters in Christ knew that I have low confidence and self-esteem.
Nicki, Bowling Green, Ky:
1. “Livin’ on a Prayer”
2. This Summer is a time of cleaning out, clearing out, and instructing/prioritizing with my kids. This is the season -after- our first year of homeschooling, and I see lots of areas where God is calling us to grooowwww. I have asked God to press my reset button and am willing to yield.
3. I wish my sisters in Christ knew that I just love them anyway. I have made a lot of mistakes in my life and have needed a lot of grace, and I am so thankful for the ministry of the Holy Spirit to work in our hearts when we are just a little hopeless and a lot imperfect. I want to be that same grace to the ones I love.
4. Thank you, Lord, for the promise. Looking for the fruit. Preparing to enjoy. He gives and He adds no sorrow with it.
1. HE saw the Best in Me
2. I am in a season of reflection and rebuilding
3. I wish my sisters knew that even though I am the encourager, comforter and the strong one to my family and friends, I too need encouragement, comfort sometimes.
1. I Am Redeemed.
2. Oldest child going to college soon.
3. Just because I am quiet at first doesn’t mean that I don’t have a relationship with God and accept me.
Lindsay, Beaverton, OR, solo
#1 Every Season – Nicole Nordeman
#2 Right now is a season of major change (or change soon to come) on every front, both in our immediate & extended family: pregnancy, job changes, juggling finances, numerous family moves happening, church involvement & transition, etc.
#3 I wish my sisters in Christ knew that I LOVE to help but that I need help too ~ that I wish I could do everything for everyone but I have to pause (especially right now) to be sure I’m not short-changing those that are closest to me of my time & energy.
#4 I want to remember to shout the wonderful ways God is blessing us in this season of rest & change. We do see the fruit He has been producing and we now are beginning to harvest and want to give Him the glory for it.
Sandy MtHolly NJ.
1 Desert Song by Brook Frazer.
2. 3 granddaughters live with me half the week, making life VERY busy but I won’t allow that to stop me on the course God’s pulling me into.
3 the lack of spiritual togetherness in my 44 year marriage makes my home life extremely stressful.
4 Comfort instead of commitment Quiet vs risk. Can’t get my husband to go in that direction.
Katie, Mandan North Dakota, individual (though my mom and 2 sisters are doing it from their homes too)
1. Can’t think of the perfect song. Can’t think, really. Mom-brain. Best I can come up with is “God of Wonders”–in process of church planting, praying4/starting a BSF here, started a business 2.5 years ago, and God has (to my surprise and w/o me realizing what I was signing up for) put me into seminary courses to train me for the call to teaching He’s put on my life. It’s been a MAJOR faith walk season… but have we seen WONDERS!! O the JOY! (Not to mention we have 4.5 and 2.5 yr.old boys, and another baby on the way)
2.This is a season of believing God to do what I am absolutely incapable of. It’s the best.
3. I wish my sisters-in-Christ knew that I’m not very good at phone calls, but I will always eventually get back to you, but it may take a few hours or days. It’s mostly a time/priority issue, but also part not liking the phone issue. God is working this out in me. 🙂
1. On the Mountain by Selah
2. This season has pressed me to trust God in ways I never thought I’d have to after my hubby was diagnosed with cancer. I have learned that He is enough.
3. I wish my sisters in Christ knew that I find great joy in listening and encouraging others in their spiritual walk.
Patty, Knoxville, TN/Solo
#1 Dazed & Confused
#2 Coming through a season of much change and grief.
#3 I don’t have it all together … without Jesus, I would be an utter and complete mess.
#4 There’s a banana with my name on it … I can almost taste it! : )
1. “Hold On”
2. I have a new baby on the way. Caleb Edward, ETA mid August.
3. I do not have it all together in any way, shape, or form. 🙂
Lisa, Walnut Creek, Ca/group/#2
#2 I am in a season where I’m doing things I never though possible.
#4 I eel I am in a season of a lot of fruit that has ripened.
Kerry, Jackson, TN, Solo
1. Caught in a Trap
2. Wilderness
3. I am a Introvert and listen more than I talk. I am very interested in people and what they are saying, just a person of fewer words UNLESS you get me started on something I am passionate about!
4. Fruit – harvested from seeds planted long ago. Thinking about my 17 year old son and a desire he has that we know is God’s will for him and we have not given up and praying daily about it for over 2 years!! Waiting for the harvest of the seeds he, and we have been planting in the way of prayer and his hard work and dedication and not giving up when it looks like it’s never going to happen!
1. Changes by David Bowie
2. Soon to be Empty Nester, my youngest leaves home in a few weeks, so definitely a season of change for me.
3. I wish my sisters in Christ knew that I tend to be a judgemental person
1. Desperado
2. Trust in Gods faithfulness regarding my husbands difficult job and season
3. I wish my sisters in Christ knew.. were looking for the right church.
4. That Gods going to water my dry, cracked season and
bring fourth his summer fruit.
1) “A Mighty Fortress is Our God”
2)My ‘baby’ (of 3 – all far away) will graduate from college and I’m still wishing they were all back home!
3)I wish my sisters in Christ could know some of the struggles I’ve had and not feel sorry for me. I have been blessed beyond measure!
4)I want to be so deeply connected to the vine, that my fruit ill be enticing!!