The book club continues casually on. The children have a new favorite activity: collecting ladybugs! The ladies all enjoy being with other grown ups, sipping drinks and sharing from the heart. Transparency is the benchmark, and while I don't set out to make women cry, tears flow each week as women apply the truths of
Deeper and get real. It's a beautiful thing. And when a kid flies through the screen door or something, we all laugh and know we have found an authentic, unpretentious place of worship.
This week we discussed the chapter we were on...lol...none of us seemed to be reading the same chapters but all of us had something to share about what we were getting out of the book. I was focused on chapters 6 and 7 and wanted to highlight the concept of "Father filter." So, I did what any spiritually mature woman would do: I got out the coffee filters. And you can do the same at home.
Each woman got a paper coffee filter. We talked about how Debbie shares that our lives are Father filtered meaning that nothing comes into our lives that hasn't be pre-approved by God: not disabilities, not tragedies, not pain. All these things come to our lives with Almighty God's permission.
Does God author sin? Absolutely not! Does God permit our lives to be touched by sin and tragedy? Absolutely yes! Just how coffee grounds along are bitter and not good for much else, when they are placed in a filter (God's hands?!) and water pours through (Holy Spirit?!), the final product is fragrant, energizing and delicious - just like our lives filtered through God's loving hands.
We returned to read Psalm 139 out loud:
1 O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.
5 You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
God, as they say, "met us right where we were at." We were talking about how God spiritually boxes us in (verse five.) Moments later, one of our sweeties who had fallen off the play set and had been resting on his Mama's lap, climbed into an empty planter box and sat down. It was the perfect illustration of being hemmed in behind and before and discussed how our lives are like that too. As it says in the New Living translation, "His hand of blessing is on our heads."
We also shared the truth from the story of Joseph that what the enemy meant for harm, God meant for good.
Joseph's story
As we tucked our coffee filters into our bibles we prayed that we will understand more and more what it means to live freely and loved and secure with God's hand upon us.
