Thankful Day 10: BSF

My Bible opened to Isaiah 12.

When I was in college, my mother-in-law would tell me about this amazing Bible study. I was way too busy with classes at the time (I took extra units) to add another commitment. My mentor when I got married also encouraged me to join. So, during my first year of teaching, I attempted to be apart of Bible Study Fellowship (BSF). I made it until October or November, and then dropped out. I was newly married and teaching for the first time. My time management was not the best, and I had to let it go.

Once I moved to our current city, I tried again. This time, I had an ally. A brand new friend and I went to the women's study on Monday nights and then spent a couple hours on Thursday nights do most of the study at a Starbucks. Having a friend as a form of accountability made a HUGE difference.

This year I switched to the day class. I was totally intimidated by this group of 700 women. I thought the night class was intimidating at first, but this was a whole new world. One thing I've learned in the past few weeks is that I'm super glad that BSF breaks up into small groups for discussion. It has made that lost in the crowd feeling calm way down. This year we are studying Isaiah, which most of the women today admitted has been challenging. So if you're studying it too, don't give up!

Today I am thankful that Eliana has done extremely well during BSF. She was only 11 weeks or so when I first brought her to BSF. I was t-e-r-r-i-f-i-e-d that she was squall during the lecture and all eyes would be on me. Instead I have found her to really good Wednesday mornings, and I credit that to a gracious God who knows I can only handle so much.

I'm also thankful for the seminar on sharing the gospel. The nuts and bolts of the seminar is to realize that God is perfect and we're not. God wants to have a relationship with us, but we can't do that on our own because we have disobeyed God. The way to have a restored relationship is through God's Son Jesus. Jesus came to earth, lived a perfect life, and died on the cross to pay the penalty for our disobedience. The best part is that he didn't stay in the grave. He rose again. Now we have a choice with what to do with this knowledge. We can be eternally separated from God for our disobedience, or we can accept Jesus as Lord of our life and let his shed blood cover our brokenness.

I'm not perfect, just ask anyone who knows me, but I am forgiven.