Section 1: Chapters 1 & 2

Chapter 1

I have to start this post with a confession: I really had a tough time feeling sorry for the author! Before you think I am heartless let me say that I am listening to the audio book as well as reading the book and it is narrated by the author herself so when you hear her talking about how spoiled she was after her divorce and whining about how tough it is to have to go shopping for new clothes because she lost weight! She travels to visit mother Theresa for goodness sake! Who does that? I am showing my green aren't I, but she even describes herself as a "divorced princess" so I guess she assumed we would see it that way too!! OK there I vented, now I can go forward thanks for letting me share :-) !

Then I went back and red the bible verse she starts the book out with at the top of Chapter 1

My life flies by - day after hopeless day. (Job 7:6, TLB)

And I realised any of our lives can feel hopeless irregardless of how much wealth, influence or opportunities we have, it is all relative. It also gave me hope for myself, because if she can go to Calcutta and live with Mother Theresa and still have work to do then there must still be hope for me, and I am not as slow as I feel.

What Katie describes as a "Longing for Purpose" I think is what I really mean when I say I have no talents or purpose. Her way of saying it sounds much nicer! I think I will change what I am claiming with that statement and steal hers for myself. I do feel like I am getting ready to start down a path that will change my feelings about my purpose and the path of my life, and I think this book is going to be a part of that journey.

I love how she can look back on the years she was learning her purpose with such clarity and how she sees each step so clearly in hindsight. The fact that there were years in between them scares me a little but also reminds me how impatient we are, "I want to know my purpose now please". I would rather not go through the years of learning and hurting and growing, thank you very much. I think if God granted my request and gave me all the knowledge I needed right now my head and heart would probably explode, which is why he lovingly doles it out slowly.

The Do-Be-Do philosophy is very applicable for this phase of the journey, I tend to look long term to much and wonder "are we there yet?" and forget that today is such a blessing and a huge step in the path!

Chapter 2

This chapter has gotta suck for a lot of us! I will be completely vulnerable here and say that if I had not already dealt with most of the bricks in my backpack (or at least begun to deal with) I could not have gotten past this step, but I noticed I just said "in my backpack" so apparently they are not completely gone! When she asks us to list 5 things that have caused us grief at the end of the chapter I was a little shocked to realize I have experienced almost all of them, really I am only missing the mark by 1 or 2 and I think one of them I only miss by semantics!!

I love that she uses Psalm 56:8 "You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book." Luckily I decided a long time ago to trust God to use my past for good as she asks us to do, but that does not mean I have healed completely either, I just trust that I will and that God loves me and will use it for good. I deal with my crap when it happens, those of you who know me, know that I cry like I laugh! I am not one to keep things bottled up (well at least the big things :-), but I honestly wish I was better at just unpacking my backpack and leaving the bricks at the feet of Jesus and never picking them up again! I wonder which of the issues I have dealt with in my life God will use to help others, knowing that there are a few which would take a lot more growth on my part before I would be able to help anyone else with them and to be honest being a little scared of that growth. I hope that God will lead me to a place where the things of my past can be used to help others either to keep them from going through them at all, or dealing with them better than I did, or being able to show them an example of God's love and healing.

I heard something recently that really struck a cord within me, the speaker said we are always asking why bad things happen to good people when in this fallen world we should be saying it is amazing and we should thank God everyday that good things happen to good people at all!

We all deal with heart ache and disappointment, it is up to us how we use those events to help others and how to make sure people see God's love for them through us. I love what Katie says " God's pleasure is to make good out of bad. He is your loving and generous Father. He has a way of delicately wrapping all the parts of your life together as a package deal to give you hope and purpose."

Her second question at the end of the chapter makes me cry because I realize how much God loves me! Through all of the grief of my life some imposed on me by others and some self imposed, to God it does not matter, he has used so much of my grief for good in my life, even the fact that he has carried me through some of the events in my life is an amazing act of grace and love in itself. I am a lucky girl! We are all lucky girls! We may have a ways to go on this road or some of you may be further a long the path but we all have a God who will continue to love us no matter how long it takes us to figure out our purpose. That knowledge gives me such hope and a burning desire to give that hope to other women not as lucky as us.

Here we go girls, I think this semester is going to be a great adventure! I think we are going to know a lot more about each other when it is over!

Semester Schedule

Here it is girls! The schedule for this semester! We will be handing these book marks out on this Sunday the 30th at 7:00pm at the Starbucks on 135th and Blackbob. See you there!

Life Group Rally!!!!

I wish I had pictures of yesterday!!! Michelle Thomson, Debi Winchell and Kori Baack all sang Kareoke at our table and it ROCKED!!!!!! We had almost 30 women sign up! This is going to be an amazing semester!

We have our first meeting this coming Sunday the 30th at Starbucks on 135th & Blackbob @ 7:00pm. We will go over the schedule and hand out the beautiful book markers that Monique Burkett made for us.

Please try to come if you can it is going to be a great time of fellowship!

Michele

Life Group Rally Coming Up!

This semesters life group rally was pushed back a few weeks to September 23rd to give everyone more time to get ready for the semester and the rally itself. Our entire church was very focused on the homeless and so life group planning was not a priority, until now!


I am going to have our table up early starting this coming Sunday so everyone can see the book we have chosen and have time to buy it so we will be ready to go!