My Grass is Pretty Green

So yesterday turned into a very spiritually uplifting day and it's carried over into today. My friend Hannie and I decided to hold each other accountable in our time with God and so we're spending time alone reading Romans but then coming together (over the phone, it's a little hard to travel 1,000 miles three times a week or so) and discussing the scriptures and cross referencing and really digging in together and it was great! Then we spent time praying for our families, friends, our selves, our ministries, and even better three of each of our kids for their particular struggles or triumphs. This was probably the best time spent in God's Word in a long time, and I loved it! Not that I didn't love God's Word, but it was a chore to get in there and let God speak and not try and do it myself. And that's hard because I think all of us go through these times of struggle with God's Word. Some of us power through and know God will prevail and others of us fall of the wagon so to speak. Either way, I'm feeling blessed.

Better yet, we both started off with fresh Concordia Self-Study Bibles because while we both have them, they are filled with class notes, notes about how to make scripture apply to our ministry, notes on how we were struggling or God was triumphing in our lives at that time, and decided that we needed a clean slate to begin a new path with God in our lives. This was so exciting, but the hardest part is now it seems like we have a ton of reading to do because these Bibles are so unread!

So, we had been talking as we were planning all of this and I mentioned how I really wanted to read Hosea because I had never actually read it and it was calling out my name. So we'd talked about maybe doing it after we'd read through Romans. So, I mentioned something to my pastor about wanting to read it and he laughed at me. Apparently, the Tues. morning Bible study that I go to had just started it the week before (I'd spent the day with the preschool kids that morning) and so not only did I get to dig into Romans yesterday, I also got to begin my dig into Hosea. I've always loved the Tuesday morning group because my pastor is so knowlegable but also very passionate about his faith and how it interacts with his life! So learning about Hosea is even better because I'm being guided by someone who I admire and know is teaching God's Word and from his heart because he does have the heart of God.

Now even better is that Romans was one of my favorite books of the Bible to read before, but this time through it's already got new applications that I never realized before and there is even more this time through than the last time through and it's glorious! Praise God for roping Hannie and I in and saying now is the time! Praise God for hearing my desire to learn about Hosea (cause I'm probably a little Gomerish) and Praise God for the ability to pray and lift the names of those we love to him!