Recap of week 4 for BF

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Hello ladies!  Attendence was down this week ~ remember don't think you can't come because you haven't completed or are behind in your homework.  We miss you!  Beth was right, week 4 is the hardest out of all our homework for the series.  It dealt with our "ancient ruins" ~ hence our family tree.

I noticed I was continually distracted doing each days lesson and my distraction was more physical than emotional. (non-emotional - no big surprise there!) For some ladies the physical feeling can be just down right anger or sadness or you start clenching your teeth or your stomach is getting into knots or your feeling like your getting nauseous and you just want to go and vomit! It really surprised me because I actually felt the physical response to want to eat. It didn’t matter that that I wasn’t hungry because I had just literally finished breakfast or dinner but I found myself standing in the kitchen and momentarily forgot why I came in there. I set my workbook down to come in the kitchen to get something. Well it hit me that I may just be in the kitchen to fill in the large gaps of answers I didn’t know in my family’s Maternal and Paternal chart with FOOD. Can anybody else relate? This was pretty big for me because I make it no secret that I lurve food, I’m not a picky eater. I can’t wait to see what you all bring for snack every week. So it’s not like I have a diversion to food. That was just day 1 of our homework and can I just tell you how it repeated itself over and over and over again throughout the week. Ladies, if you are struggling in this area, you are not alone! And now I am praying daily for this because I know that is not a healthy behavior. Being unable to fill in many of the blanks of the chart, it made me think of how I spent the Thanksgiving/ Christmas holidays with my “ancient ruins” and even more recently at a baby shower when only the women of my “ancient ruins” were there. It also reminded me of who wasn’t there. Do you see how this week’s chapter on rebuilding our own ancient ruins seems to be the basis of this bible entire study now?

 

Then I got an idea! I have this game called Jenga that is made up of wooden blocks and starts as a solid tower.  The object of the game is keep the tower from falling down while each player removes a wooden block from it and then places it on top of the tower, hence the tower continues to get higher while the stability of it gets shaky because the foundation has all these holes in it. Well I got it out and started playing it with my kids, building the tower higher and higher, and ooohing and awwwwwing at how high it would get each time before it finally fell and it looked just like an ancient ruin. To put my idea to the test, while we played I asked the kids to imagine that the blocks were things in our family and if we took them out one by one, what would we be left with. Their answers were things like people in our family and the material possessions we had. Then just to see their reaction I asked them, “What if Jesus wasn’t part of our family?” They both just looked at me and at each other. And then they started saying “Oh man, that would be baaaaaaaad. No Jesus?” I smiled ~ because to them Jesus has always been a party of their life, they haven’t experienced it any other way. Ladies, we are here to become the generational link in our family line, breaking generational strongholds that can only be rebuilt by God himself. No doubt the chains we are wearing are going to be different for each of us. Sue, my co-leader for the Thursday morning group and I pray that you will allow God to reconstruct your past. But resist the urge to run away or run to family members and literally hurl your insults/hurts at them.  Unfortunately we can't take this on in our teaching group each week, but if what is being revealed in you causes you to recognize a need, please seek proper help from a pastor, Christian based counselors or support groups if necessary.

My prayer to you all this week... Jesus, teach us to walk in your presence daily through prayer and bible study. Reveal to our children and grandchildren our passionate and devoted love to you. Reveal to us any Jenga pieces that represent strongholds in our ancient ruins that only you can rebuild because the tower has come tumbling down in our lives. God you are the master architect of our lives and Jesus is the only cornerstone piece that can rebuild us from the ground up! Amen

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