This post is part five of a six-week series on how to start and facilitate a women’s Bible study group. Today, we're walking through how to love group members well and maximize discussion.

As we consider all of the demands on our time during the Christmas season, it’s important for us to count the cost of decorating. When your two-year-old removes every ornament from the bottom third of the tree, your one-year-old is chewing on baby Jesus, and you’re sweeping up pine needles multiple times a week, you need a reminder of your reasoning!...

So, if you’re getting ready to bring that tub of Christmas paraphernalia out of storage (or maybe you’re a person who decorates right after Halloween!), take a minute and consider how you can be more intentional with it this year.

Not to add another burden, but to use what you’re already spending time on to point yourself and your whole family to Christ. Put up the printable with the verse from “O Holy Night” and sing it to your little ones. Talk about the wonderful gift of Christ’s coming when you set out the kid’s nativity set on the coffee table. Tell your children that Jesus is the light of this world when you wrap the tree with the tangled mess of string lights from three-years-ago.

It’s all a chance to spread the good news!
 

Like anyone, moms are susceptible to the conforming pressures of the world. The world tries to squeeze us into its mold like the play dough in our playrooms. 

Conformity comes from the word for “masquerade” – “to wear a mask” or “play a part.”...When our doxology and theology is conformed to the world, it gives the outward appearance of substance without an inward reality...

As we yield our minds to be renewed in the truth, our doxology and theology are transformed. The word reorients and realigns everything we think and do.

Transformation is radical, and sometimes messy, but in the end, glorious! The goal of transformation is to look like Jesus. The word of God (theology) reveals the glory of God (doxology) and the Spirit of God transforms us to be like the Son of God (2 Corinthians 3:17-18).

We are continually becoming what we will be – and what we are becoming is what we behold.

This post is part four of a six-week series on how to start and facilitate a women’s Bible study group. In today’s post, we’re walking through a few things to consider as you gather women together to study the Bible.

As Christians, we know that God’s heart is for adoption. We rehearse to one another that pure religion looks after the orphan (James 1:27). We believe he sets the fatherless in families (Psalm 68:6) and that he will not leave us as orphans, but that he’ll come to us (John 14:18). We know the Father lovingly adopted us, paying an unspeakable price to make us his own (Ephesians 1:5-7).

We rightly apply the gospel to our lives when we acknowledge that we are adopted sons and daughters and we set out to adopt as well. It is a high and holy calling to be an adoptive mom. It is a right response to the love the Father has freely lavished on us.

But when we adopt, there are limitations to this gospel application, which are not always acknowledged. You and I are not God. We are far from perfect, sinless saviors. And our children don’t fit the mold of repentant and grateful sinners expected after a salvation experience. The parallels do break down.

Every adoption is birthed in brokenness. When you and I step in, our children have already endured losses we will never fathom. They carry pain we cannot heal.

This post is part three of a six-week series on how to start and facilitate a women’s Bible study group. In today’s post, we're walking through how to find theologically-sound resources, as well as the right format for your particular Bible study group.

How can a busy mom find rest for herself? It’s ultimately through cultivating a place of rest that can never be taken away and isn’t restricted to one day of the week. It’s a place of rest in the heart, rooted in a particular person...

We learn rest from the one who is rest. When we heap the heavy mothering burdens of the day or week on our shoulders he tells us this: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest...

The burdens we put on ourselves as moms can be crushing, but Jesus tells us to come and learn from him (sit at his feet, like Mary).

What are we learning from him? To be gentle and lowly in heart. This is how we find rest in him. When we stop thinking everything is up to us and dependant on our success as moms. His yoke is easy and light for us, because he’s put everything on his shoulders. Our rest is found in putting our burdens on the one who was meant to carry them for us.

This post is part two of a six-week series on how to start and facilitate a women’s Bible study group. In today’s post, we’re taking a look at the benefits of prioritizing Bible study and learning God’s Word for ourselves as moms.

October 31st is marked by falling leaves, buckets of candy, and adorably dressed children parading down neighborhood streets as animals, a favorite character, or, as I was for many years, a pumpkin. The anticipation of the 31st begins as early as stores release costumes and candy corn in the late summer months. But the 31st actually marks two holidays, and one – though lesser known – is extremely significant and exciting for all Christians. The final day of October is known as Reformation Day, where a surprisingly monumental decision was made in a little town in Germany in 1517 that would impact generations. And this year is the 500th anniversary.

Maybe you’ve never heard of Reformation Day or maybe you’re wondering how this relates to motherhood in 2017. Here’s really brief history lesson:

This post is part one of a six-week series on how to start and facilitate a women’s Bible study group. In today’s post, we’re taking a look at three benefits for studying God’s Word as moms.

Like you’d teach them with anything else, it’s essential that we begin to teach our children about creation, specifically the image of God, at an early age.

If you want your children to embrace those who are different than them, then you must start with helping them understand that God is the Creator of every tribe, tongue, and nation.

...

Heaven will be filled with people from Indonesia, Dubai, Zambia, the Appalachian Mountains of East Tennessee and the Grand Cayman Islands. And today we can get a foretaste of heaven when we step out of our comfort zones to get to know someone not like us.

Your children are watching and learning from you. They will embrace whom you embrace. It is God who motivates us to step outside ourselves and celebrate the differences around us. God created, he redeems, and it is He who is calling all these different people together in Christ for His glory.

I left the meeting as early as I could excuse myself and came home, hobbling in our back door, running to the bathroom. I knew what to expect but nothing prepares you for the emotional and physical toll of blood loss, hormone loss, and the tiny baby loss in the moment.

Before I got married I thought, at times, women could be dramatic about their infertility or miscarriages. I thought: “Children are a blessing, but they’re not an idol. Why is your world falling apart because of this?” As I lay sobbing on our bed that day, I hiccupped through the words, “I just want it to stop.” 

... The Psalmist David knew this slow drive too. He said the words, “How long, O Lord?” nine times in the book of Psalms. He was desperate for the Lord to relent, to show up, to release, and to end David’s suffering. We, like David, are not good in the middle of things. We don’t like it. We can anticipate the danger or suffering ahead, even know the right theology to regard it, but when the gushing pain begins, where is our hope then?

Our hope is in the permission to say, with David, “How long, O Lord?” And then to keep saying it, for as long as we are still waiting for it to relent.

... Our Father knows the searing loss of losing a child. Our Savior said these words on the cross, “My God. My God. Why have you forsaken me?” Our Spirit groans with us in our weakness with words too deep for us to even understand. Surely there is permission to sit, ache, mourn, and weep in this middle place?