True Confessions Week 1

I went to the first week of a women's Bible study last night and must now make a confession. Here's the background. This Bible study is not at my church and it is in a tiny little church basement. When I got there last night there were about 16 faces staring at me and my friend Laurie, who is leading the study, comes over and welcomes me and promptly tells me we are paring up with a prayer partner, alphabetically. She drags me into some sort of lineup and determines I will be partners with Gina. She then instructs us to go off somewhere in the room, alone, and answer a list of interview questions from a sheet she just handed us. The first questions were fine, name, phone, married, children, then it took a turn for the deeply personal. Not my strong suite, especially with a stranger. Gina and I determined we were in the same boat and that we were a little out of our comfort zone. OK, got through that.

Next we meet back at the table that apparently seats 16 comfortably, and I am #17. So a sweet woman from the group finds one last folding chair that is in a back room and brings it over to me and opens it and it makes this horrible screeching noise (see previous post for how that bothers me). So now I am in this chair kind of on the perimeter of the table. So we get into the questions that we were to answer from our study during the week, and my dear, sweet friend Laurie calls me out. I hate talking in front of a group let alone about personal things but I gave my answer and "stretched" myself a little. Then as all the other women began sharing, one in particular intrigued me. She has a pretty ordinary name, but in my head her name should be something like Esmeralda. She is very dramatic, and theatrical and has some sort of quote or saying for everything that each of us said. She is very demonstrative and affirming. Well, I had this strong urge to burst out laughing more than once whenever she was talking. I am thanking the Lord that he helped me with that.

All that to say, I have made an effort to be a part of women's Bible studies at various times in my life and in my opinion, it always goes all kinds of bad. It usually ends up being a time when one or two women share too much or go off in tangents. I really wanted to run screaming from the building as soon as I got there.

So on my ride home I was pondering what to do and I realized first, this will make for great blog post material, but more importantly, I am going to step out of what makes me comfortable and I like the idea of being accountable for studying the Bible each week. I am going to view these women as a cast of characters and try to learn something from what they say. It is also a great study from Max Lucado, "No Wonder They Call Him Savior" that will take us up to Easter. I am looking forward to focusing on what my Savior did for me on the cross.

So my true confession from week 1 is to answer the question, "What do you most want to be remembered for when you are gone from this life?" My answer is that I was unashamed to tell others of God and of salvation. In my safe bubble world, it is so easy not to stretch myself to do that since almost every person I have contact with knows the Lord. I want to be a prayer warrior and to be bold in my faith.