Have I told you about these women? Well, doesn't the one in the middle in the blue necklace look wise? Well she is! I may just want to grow up to be just like her. Hubby and I have known Lennie and her husband, Greg, for 5 years now. We met them at our former church when we first got married and they have become such dear friends of our family. We basically stalked...I mean, followed them to our current church. Two years ago as we were getting restless at our old church and were in the process of visiting local churches, hubby said let's visit HBC since the Glenns go there it can't be that bad. Lennie and her husband have raised three daughters and have so much wisdom between the two of them it's almost not fair that they keep it to themselves. So, they don't. They are very committed to serving the body through their counseling experiences and Lennie's passion is to mentor women. Well, a year ago, she approached me along with four other ladies from our church to start a mentoring "thing". Well, sure I said, not knowing what this "thing" was really going to be about but it sounded good. To make a long explanation short, we would meet once a week for 16 weeks. We would have read through the Gospels(Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) all the way through 3 times, read 1 Proverb a day, 70 pages out of a book each week(we ended up reading 6 books total) and memorized one bible verse each week. Then we would meet to discuss what God had taught us during that time. Well, it may or may not sound like a lot but it was for me! For one, I'm not a reader...and it was more than I read even in college I would venture to bet because there were no Cliff Notes, hello!!! Yes, there were times I felt I was speed reading. And the memory verses almost gave me anxiety attacks but I'm here to say if I did it anyone can do it! For one thing, it gave me confidence to know that if I was to continue the reading and memory verses on my own I could do it again! Yes, it was all very structured but the best part of it was we were accountable to each other. Did I maintain all I read, no! Was I perfect in memorizing my verses, negative! But I have learned some disciplines in reading God's Word and memorizing as well as meditating on His Word...lessons I hope to keep exercising!
Sooo...fast forward a year later, Lennie and her husband Greg, have retired and have moved to a small town still in Texas, thank God! During the transition, they put their house up for sale, downsized their lovely home and basically sold most of their furniture. Lennie had wonderful taste and collected some beautiful antique pieces so I asked her was it hard to sell them? She said "no, they were just things". But of course! I forgot who I was talking to!
But Lennie's legacy lives on because this January the ladies that she mentored last Spring (including yours truly) are paying forward and mentoring a group of ladies at our church. We are calling it Determined Desire...pretty much you need both to go through this. I say mentoring but really I'm just passing the baton of what I gleaned during my season with Lennie. Just the opposite, we are 3 weeks into it and I feel I'm learning so much from them. Their commitment is encouraging and I am looking forward to what the Lord has in store for this group of women! Praise God for what He is stirring the hearts of the women in our church! I couldn't be more thrilled to be a part of it! We are doing the exact same reading schedule and books (these books are also posted on this blog). And I have to tell you doing it the second time around is pretty much a blessing because I'm catching things I didn't get the first time around! I'm slow that way! We are also mediating on 2 Peter 1: 5-8 " For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness, and to goodness knowledge; and to knowledge. self control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and brotherly kindness, love; For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." We will be going deep with what it means to "add on to our faith" these characteristics, if you will. What does it mean to add on "goodness" to your faith, etc...And more specifically how will we apply this to our lives. There will also be a different challenge for every 2 weeks. The first one was Feasting on the Word. We could choose fasting on food or any other disciplines (TV, Internet, FaceBook, Blogging, etc...) but instead spend that time reading God's Word. Like one person said, there would be no need for diet programs if we feasted on God's Word as much as we feast on food. So I will leave these little morsels as food for thought!
