Camping….

So, at the beginning of the summer, we went camping with some friends and had a marvelous time. We shared a tent with them for our first trip together. Jon and I enjoyed our time that we decided we would keep our eyes out for a tent at a reasonable price. A few weeks later, our neighbor was having a yard sale. He had this bag full of supplies. I asked how much he wanted for the tent, and he said $10. I immediately jumped at the idea. I went to get the money. When I came back, he realized that I had misunderstood him. See, the bag included a tarp for under the tent, the tent, a canopy type thing to put around a table to keep the bugs out, and a lot of spikes and what not. Anyway, he was like, how about we say $20 for it all. I was still very pleased…especially if you know anything about how much new tents cost.

So this past weekend was our first opportunity to use our new tent. All in all, it was a marvelous time. The tent is large enough for our air mattress which was a requirement this time, because sleeping on rocks isn’t too much fun, and that is typically what the campsites are made of lots of rocks! The friends we were going with are always fun to be around! Courtney (my friend) and I started planning what we needed to bring a couple weeks earlier, and we each had our list of groceries to bring. Well, we got to the campsite and realized that one or both of us had forgotten a lot of stuff. My girlfriend had forgot her skillet which is how we were going to cook most of our items. Then when the guys arrived (with the skillet) we realized we had no matches, and for you Survivor fans, fire is a must to survival. So, the guys went back out to get fire. Then we are browning the meat, and I am getting the supplies ready for our tacos….only to realize I left the tortillas in my fridge at home. Thankfully, I had brought Tortilla chips to enjoy Jon’s guacamole, so we all had taco salads instead.

Anyway, the forecast called for no rain, so I decided not to put the rain fly on so that we could see the stars and moon from inside our tent. All was great! On Sunday morning around 2am, Jon wakes me up to tell me he thinks it’s raining. We wait for a moment, and sure enough, drop here and a drop there. So, we scurry around. Gathering items from outside that can’t get wet. I am scurrying to figure out how to put the rain fly on. I had never tried doing it, and in the middle of the night half-asleep didn’t help. 😉 We finally got it on, but we didn’t tie it down as well as we could have since it was 2am! Well, the good news, is my side of the airmattress stayed dry. So, Jon and Lexi both tried to fit on my side of the air mattress. Talk about a squished, cold, wet bed. The thunderstorms started 15 minutes after we got back into the tent, and then the skies opened up. It stopped raining around 7:45 which is when we got up and just started packing up….only for the rain to start again. What a miserable end to the weekend. On the bright side though, we DESPERATELY needed the rain. It was funny. As I laid in bed, I was praying asking God to stop the rain where we were at, but to let it keep raining at our house. Talk about being specific. ha ha. It turned out for the best though because Jon and I got some much needed rest on Sunday since we got home earlier than we expected.

Looking forward to the next time we can go. Hope you enjoyed our humorous camping trip.

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Week 3: Lies we believe about God!

Well, we have survived. We are on to week three of the study! This week’s Bible verse has me excited, and I hope it will you too! We are learning Psalm 16:11.

Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence [is] fullness of joy; at thy right hand [there are] pleasures for evermore.

There are so many nuggets and promises in this small verse. 1) God will always show me the path I should follow. The question is will I follow it? 2) When I am with God and seek His face, I will be full of joy no matter the circumstance. I have seen this lately where believers face adversity are still showing that they have joy! 3) We are promised that we will have “pleasures for evermore” when we are with Christ. Can you even imagine eternity knowing that we will have pleasures forever! This verse will help us remember why we, as women, do certain activities. Our next chapter is about the lies that we believe ourselves. I won’t spoil the chapter by telling you what some of them are, but as we talked about last time, for many of us, the main reason we did things was because of pride and caring what those around us thought of us. This verse reminds us that we are living for those pleasures for evermore….with GOD, not with that person we seem to place so much esteem on.

This week we talked about Lies that we believe about God. Here are a listing of them from DeMoss’ book Lies Women Believe:

1. God is not really good.
2. God doesn’t love me.
3. God is just like my father.
4. God is not really enough.
5. God’s ways are too restrictive.
6. God should fix my problems.

I hate writing them out. It makes me think of which ones I “believe” (i.e. live out), but would never verbalize. Which I guess a blog is verbalizing them, but there are two on this list that I struggle with #3 and #4. #4 is the hardest to verbalize. I have all of the book knowledge to know that God is more than I deserve, but somehow my schedule, wants, and desires tell God that He isn’t enough for me…that I need that new outfit, more friends, bigger house, or even children. Hmmm….again, as I have read the chapter, I will still need to pray on this one for help to practice believing truths.

The women shared areas where they have believed lies about God, but we ended our discussion time with talking about believing truths about God. We even saw truths exercised by God during our time together, and for those that were there, I think it was really exciting to see God working in that way!

Hoping to see each of you next week. If you lost your meeting/reading schedule, check out the previous post, and you’ll be set. Hope to see each of you next week! Praying for each of you.

Bible Study: Take 2

Sorry for the long delay on the write-up from our last Bible study. Let me start by saying, it went 1,000 times better than the first one. The Lord brought about eleven people to this week’s study of the first chapter of Lies Women Believe. We spent the first part of the study reviewing our previous memory verse and discussing our new one. We are working on James 1:5. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. Some of the women shared that there are current situations in their lives that this verse can be applicable.

For me personally, I frequently turn to my girlfriends or my husband when I want advice or “wisdom,” but God promises me in this verse that He will give me wisdom, and that He gives it liberally or in great abundance to those that ask. I pray that this verse has been and will be a challenge to you until we meet again. I have specific instances in my life that I can apply this promise, and having the verse memorized and in my heart makes it much easier to apply to my life.

We spent the majority of our time discussing the first chapter about lies and their consequences. Since it would be impossible to re-cap our discussions, I want to list a few quotes that we discussed from the book just to encourage you in your walk.

“Regardless, the point is that as fallen women, we are particularly prone to fall prey to Satan’s deception.” (p. 33)

“Listening to counsel or ways of thinking that are not according to the Truth is the first step in developing wrong beliefs that will ultimately place us in bondage.” (p. 38)

“The important thing to remember is that every act of sin in our lives begins with a lie.” (p. 40)

We specifically discussed that women have a very persuasive power in many relationships, and it’s very important that we be following God and believing His truths so that those “powers” are used appropriately. If you are believing a lie, the book gives a step-by-step approach to breaking that belief and filling it with truths. 1) Identify the areas of bondage or sinful behavior, 2) Identify the lies at the root of that bondage or behavior, and 3) replace the lies with the Truth.

For those of you who missed our get together, we will not be meeting this week as I will be travelling to New Jersey for work. Here is our schedule for the rest of the study. If you have any questions or concerns, drop me a line. Or, if you have an update on a prayer request, please share so we can all be praying for each other.

September 16 – Chapter 2
September 30 – Chapter 3
October 14 – Chapter 4
October 28 – Chapter 5
November 11 – Chapter 6
November 18 – Chapter 7
December 2 – Chapter 8
December 16 – Chapter 9