Thinking Girls Bible Study

I'm excited to announce the first collection of Thinking Girls Bible Studies in my new book, JEWELS FROM THE JOURNEY .   I had no way of knowing when I started writing these studies back in 2017  that God would link them together with a common thread—our identity in Christ. These studies have been revisited and many of them revised. Even if you have read them previously, I hope you'll notice fresh insights. It's my desire that everyone know the joy and blessings of knowing who we are in Christ and Christ in us. I also encourage you to check out the first book published under the Thinking Girls Bible Study banner, A 21 DAY BIBLICAL GUIDE TO OVERCOMING ANXIETY . It's not just easy to feel anxious in today's world, it's almost a guarantee. Our Father has given us tools in Scripture to help us overcome our anxiety and experience the "peace that passes all understanding!" I hope this three-week guide is a useful resource to help embed Scripture in the rea...

Are you waiting on the Lord for something? Have you been waiting a long time? Have you just about given up hope? Don’t. God’s delays are always designed and productive. He is doing something that He couldn’t do without the delay. It’s because He loves you that He delays...He wants to do something more in your life than what you can see. I have been waiting on the Lord for something major in my life for a long, long time. It has been a long, and at times, agonizing journey. Some days feel very dark. The longer I wait, the more I begin to question if I’ve really heard from Him. One particular day not too long ago, I woke up in discouragement. It was one of those days of questioning. I asked the Lord to just speak to me in a way that I would know that it was Him. I opened my Bible to John 11 which is the passage of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. My eyes went immediately to a note I had written in the margin, “God has told me what to do —I need to walk in the light He ha...

Throughout the ages, many women have found themselves, whether through arranged marriages or by choice, married to men who might be considered fools... men who are not walking with the Lord...  men who have hardened their hearts to their wives and to the Lord.  The world says, "Well, you deserve to be happy."  Or it tells us that love is the basis for whether a marriage is to continue or not... as if lack of love is a legitimate reason for divorce.  Let me say here if you are divorced for whatever reason, be encouraged that you still have a Husband, and His name is King Jesus.  There is much to be learned from the story of Abigail for all women.  This study, in particular, is for those women who find themselves in the same plight as Abigail.  Let me encourage you, Dear One, if you don't know what to do, stay where you are.  God has permitted this to happen in your life, in part, to refine you, to sift you, to chip away as a gemstone cutter ch...

This next study is a very personal one for me.  Let me elaborate.  I didn't know until about fourth or fifth grade that I walked "funny." I was made fun of and became very self-conscious as a young girl.  At a time in our lives where we just want to blend into our surroundings, I felt like all eyes were on me with every step I took. My walk would come to define who I was. I wouldn't find out why I walked the way I do until I was in my forties.  And the details don't matter.  What does matter is that God taught me so many things that I wouldn't have known otherwise, simply because of the way I walk.  It began to have a parallel meaning of my walk with the Lord. Also, I don't have pretty feet. It's all related.  So when I was studying Jael, I made a discovery that really spoke to my heart.  You'll see in the lesson when we see that Jael's name means "mountain goat."  These mountain goats are surefooted climbers.  Their feet are designed...

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 whisperi...

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...

Moses had to deal with difficult people.  Some things never change, because we all find ourselves dealing with difficult people.  In dealing with those people, our own flesh always wants to  rear its ugly head. Let's remind ourselves to speak to the Rock and not the people during these times of difficulty. Scripture readings: Exodus 3:1-4:17, Acts 7:22, Numbers 12:3, Exodus 17, Numbers 20:1-12, Deuteronomy 3:23-29, 4:21-22 Moses. What a fascinating character. Definitely one of the most amazing men of God. Yet, I'm intrigued by the fact that he didn't get to go into the Promised Land, even though he knew the Lord intimately and the Lord spoke to him “face to face as one does a friend.” As I was reading in Deuteronomy where Moses is coming to the end and is giving the instructions to the children of Israel, I was struck by his words, “Furthermore the Lord was angry with me for your sakes and swore that I would not cross over the Jordan, and that I would not en...