I have mentioned a few times that I have been working on the Good Morning Girls Bible Study. It is my first time participating in an online Bible study and I have loved it for the most part and I look forward to the next one. It is hard to believe there is only two weeks left! It has flown by so very quickly…too quickly.
I have shared only a few things but this week, I thought I might share something that hit me. We will start at the beginning of the week with Monday’s verse:
Proverbs 31:30 – Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. (ESV)
The very first thing is the little phrase, “is to be praised”. Notice it’s not “will be praised”. King Lemuels mother is telling her son to praise God fearing women…particularly his wife, after that what she is teaching him to look for is a God fearing woman.
Then as the week progresses we hit the passage that challenged my heart…actually the very next day: Tuesday!
The verses that day were:
1 Peter 3:3-4 – Do not let your adorning be external-the braiding of hair and putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear-but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.. (ESV)
Wow those two verses are just jam packed with so much, but there is one phrase that totally grabbed my attention….”which in God’s sight is VERY precious…”….wait what what is very precious in God’s sight? “A GENTLE AND QUIET SPIRIT”. I had to ask myself what exactly that meant. I didn’t know. So I prayed and asked God to show me.
Soooooo the very next day as I was doing my devotions I was reading in my devotional book, called Women Mentoring Women by Terri Jenkin, and what she was talking about that day was the Fruits of the Spirit. And she defined gentleness as “recognizing others as being valuable and must be handled with care.”
Well that set me to evaluating how I treat others and what I think and say when they are not around! This is not only an external to the persons face issue. This is an inner heart and thoughts what I communicate to my friends and family issue. So yeah I may have had a polite kind attitude to the person who ripped me apart for whatever reason but if I “vented” to my hubby and whoever else will listen and talked about how horrible of person they are for doing so, I have not shown gentleness!
So this brings me to my kids…this is probably the toughest part for me. As a mom I don’t want to be that bragging, my kid can do nothing wrong, my kid is better than your kid kind of parent. I find it highly obnoxious and rude! So I tend to air on the side of my kid has a lot of faults! That also is sooooooo wrong. I love my kids and I am proud of my kids. I know my kids are imperfect and at times they seem like they are going backwards as we teach but, then again so do I and I am 32 years old! What’s my excuse? My kids think my hubby and I are the greatest thing since sliced bread. They want to be like us despite our faults……..all I have to say is….LESSON LEARNED!!
