A BLESSING AND SIGH OF RELIEF...

This past Wednesday was the beginning of a Wednesday night class that had come together just a couple of months ago.  I loved the concept, but didn't know how others might think about it.  I didn't have any idea if there would be many people there, or if I was the only one interested.

Well, my fears have been relieved and God gave me a resounding blessing to the tune of 50 ladies!  We actually could use a bigger room!

The title of the class is "Getting Creative with God," and I asked a different person each week to do a 20 minute presentation on something creative they do that brings them closer to God.  Following that we will do some form of activity (about 20-30 minutes) related to their topic.  I know each one of these people and knew that they had done some of these creative things from conversations and Facebook posts.  We are exploring topics like:

Choosing your word for the year
Making the Psalms personal
Faith Journaling
Meditation
Spiritual scrapbooking
Scripture Doodle Art
Quiet Time Practices

So for the first Wednesday night of the year, my friend Gail spoke about "Choosing a word for  the year."  She recommended two books:  My One Word and One Perfect Word. Last year she chose the word "treasure."  She meditated on scriptures and songs about treasure.  She had a treasure chest bulletin board picture posted in her closet so she would remember to "treasure each day." She said she had a plan for things she was going to do with her word, and some of those didn't work out, but the Spirit led her to do some other interesting things with it.  One example:  Her father-in-law is in his 90's and he was going to have a serious surgery.  Since her own father died in her 20's, she realized how much she treasured her father-in-law!  She wanted to show him and she did by making up a prayer calendar for 2 months after his surgery.  She asked his friends to pray for him on specific days.  She put their pictures on the calendar.  She gave it to him and they were blessed by knowing just how many people loved him and were praying for him.  It was really a great way to live out her word, "treasure."

We worked for 15-20 minutes on a worksheet she made up that had some helps to guide us toward what our own word for the year might be.  There were Bibles and songbooks on each table if ladies wanted to browse through them for ideas.  You could have heard a pin drop while we were working!

I don't know if the rest of the lessons will go as well, after all, it is a creative class.  Each one will be a little different.  My theme verse for the class is:

 Ephesians 3:16  I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being...

This scripture has come to mean a lot more to me personally as I pray it for the class.  Nothing we can do - any creative activity alone - will strengthen us.  Only by the power of His Spirit will we be strengthened in our soul!  I pray that there will be a tidbit of something that we will do in the class that sparks the desire in women's hearts to draw closer to God and allow His Spirit to work.