30 Days of Thankfulness ~ Day 4

This morning we went to Bible Study Fellowship. I mention BSF in my month of thankfulness every year. It is that important to me.

I began this year in January as a leader in the children's program teaching sixteen 2 yr olds alongside 2 wonderful ladies. Every Monday we had our leaders' training time and I got to know many wonderful women of faith in a deep and meaningful way through sharing what God was going in our lives through the study of God's Word. 

When my world came crashing down in April, they were all there. I received so many cards, meals, hugs and prayers from these women. I truly knew what it felt like to have others grieve with me. My teaching leader, Heather sent prayers over text that I still go back and read, and cried with me and then spoke hope and life to me on more than one occasion. I had a very long physical recovery time. It was a solid month before I could go up the stairs or carry William without losing breath. When I thought the time limit for receiving help was long up, I made a desperate plea for help and they met me with a flood of care and support I can't even begin to describe. One moment in particular was when I wanted to take one of the ladies up on an offer to clean my house, but it had been over a month since the offer. I couldn't work up the nerve to call and ask and was quite down about it and then she called me out of the blue and said she felt like she was supposed to remind me that the offer was still there. I cried on the phone with her and said God had told her to call me. He is so good! 

I miss them. I miss gleaning from the generations of wisdom represented in that room on Mondays. I miss serving with them on Wednesdays. I know I am doing what I am supposed to be doing with my boys at home and don't regret my decision to be doing that one bit. I am just so thankful for the season I was able to serve alongside and learn from these amazing women, many who I still have deep friendships with. 

This evening when we were eating dinner, I asked the boys what their Bible story in class was about today. They both told their versions about Saul trying to put Christians in jail, being blind for 3 days and becoming Paul (I'm sure the version they heard was quite tame in the details of Saul's persecution of the church). One of the boys, I think it was Steven, said that it wasn't good that Saul wanted to put people who believed in Jesus in jail. "He was just wrong, mommy!" I was able to then have a conversation with them about how even today in other parts of the world there are people put in prison for loving Jesus. I asked them what they thought they could do for those people and they said they could pray for them. 

Steven said, "mommy, the people who don't love Jesus don't get to live forever with Him! They are in a different place forever." I told him that different place was hell and it was a very dark, lonely, sad forever place because you aren't with Jesus. But I got really excited as I told him, "but you won't ever be there because you told Jesus you love Him and you asked him to come into your heart and make it clean. And same with Bradley!" He said, "and William!" I said, "Well, we need to pray that William will grow up to love Jesus and want to serve him too because he is so little still." "Yeah," Steven said, "he can't understand yet. I will tell him all about Jesus." Then Bradley said that he wanted to tell everybody that it is good to love Jesus. "Mommy, if I go to another state I will tell those people Jesus loves them and He is really God!" The whole time we were talking about this I kept thinking to myself, "How is this conversation happening with a 5 & 4 year old?" It makes me hopeful so much for their future. All this from me asking what their lesson at BSF was about. 

I am so thankful for the rich ministry of BSF and the impact it is having in training up these little hearts to serve the Lord. I'm thankful that the women in our Olympia class go beyond their weekly responsibilities to care richly for one another when someone is in need. I have been blessed so immensely by them in countless ways.