Thinking Girls Bible Study

I lost my precious mother a few days ago.  The ten days leading up to her death were long and draining.  I suffered as I watched my mother suffer, as I watched my sisters and brother suffer.  We spent most of the time everyday of those ten days together, with hospice nurses and CNAs coming in and out.  There was hardly any time to be alone—alone with my thoughts—alone with My Lord.  I thought of this post that I had planned next,  WILDERNESSES AND SOLITARY PLACES. I thought of my own times in the wilderness and my own need of that solitary place.  When those times of wilderness happen, it's usually pain that leads us there.  In our wildernesses, we almost always initially feel abandoned... like God has forsaken us... like He doesn't care.  Then, after a while, we begin to realize that He is calling us to a more intimate place with Him.  We begin to see that those are the sweetest times with Him... that He, through His Word, is whispering sweet truths and promises to us that p

A few years ago I watched a program on Day of Discovery. It was about a twenty year old girl named Lygon Stevens who was a mountain climber and had died in an avalanche while climbing with her brother. Lygon did not sound like your typical twenty year old. We get a glimpse into her walk with the Lord through her journal that her brother salvaged during the accident. She seemed to have found all the things that young girls are looking for in her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. But after her death, her family was left to deal with their huge heart rending loss. Their suffering was horrific. More of the story can be found on the website http://www.timetoliveisnow.org/ . The takeaway in this story for me is an illustration that came from Lygon's mother. She had been asked to speak somewhere and had gone to a place of solitude to gather her thoughts. It was still very hard to carry this whole thing around with her...the loss of her daughter, but the story of a