So God wouldn't let me sleep...

You know the Veggie Tales Jonah movie? And the part where the little catterpillar has the Jonah plush toy that says "A message from the Lord!" over and over? That was me a couple of Wednesday nights ago!

During the summer we have Sunday School on Wednesday nights at our church. Our class has been studying Phillipians and that Wed night we were talking about how Paul was saying that if you are mature in your faith you will want to live like Jesus even if it's hard or uncomfortable. So we got on the topic of parenting decisions and how once you have kids you really rethink a lot of the decisions you make because you know your kids are watching, etc. I could NOT stop thinking about this all night. About how some of the decisions I've made recently have been hard (like wearing only skirts or not "doing" Santa) because that's not how the world says you should be. And how many other moms there have to be in my church who WANT to make those hard decisions, or even have made them, but don't tell anyone because they don't want to get laughed at. Or how maybe there were moms who were like me a year or so ago who hadn't even thought about making decisions like that, but would be interested in knowing there were other options out there than just following the culture.

I could not go to sleep. I laid in bed from about 10 till 2 just rolling all this around and God kept telling me I need to start a Bible study/discussion group for moms so we can dig in deep and learn what the Bible says about what kinds of women/mothers/wives we should be. That it should be a place where we can pray for each other, our marriages and our kids and where we can support each other in making the hard decisions. God did not let me go to sleep Wednesday night until I got up and wrote a letter to invite people to this. I know this was all from God because even though I was up until 4am or so, when I woke up Thursday I was not tired at all.

I was all set to get a list together of who to send invites to Thursday but DH hadn't been able to pay the phone bill on time so it got cut off (along with our internet) and eventually a couple of days had passed and all these doubts are setting in. Should I really do this? What if no one comes? What if everyone I send invites to thinks I'm a freak and starts avoiding me at church? Do I even have time to take on one more thing? Ug! I knew it was the enemy trying to keep me from doing this, but it still made me doubt.

I've never even been to a Bible study before, so I don't even really know what I'm getting into. I envision it being very relaxed, so everyone will feel comfortable enough to talk about serious issues. I want them to have the option of bringing their kids, because I don't want childcare to be a reason not to come...I would host at my house so they could all play. I thought about it being more like a coffee house. I wanted to send out a list of possible topics on the invite to see what people would be interested in...like modesty, what it means to be a submissive wife, praying for our husbands, maybe a study on Bringing up Boys/Girls by Dobson, talking about the media's influence, Natural Family Planning vs birth control vs Quiverfull...all sorts of womanly/mothering/wifely topics. I decided on the name Great Worth from this verse:

Your beauty … should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. 1 Peter 3:3-4

I had expressed my doubts and fears on a forum I'm on and one of the women said that maybe God doesn't even intend anyone to come...maybe He just wants to see if I will obey be willing to step out of my comfort zone to start this. So I spoke with my pastor and my husband and they are both supportive. I'm going to send out an invitation to a bunch of women and see what a good day and time would be...or maybe it will just see if anyone is even interested. I'm getting excited again, and I think that is a good thing. I'm still scared though, but that's ok.

Prayer requests: Pray with me as our church looks for a new youth pastor. Pray for a relative who is dying of cancer. Pray for Great Worth and that it will be a good ministry.

Praises: Praise God for providing food for us to eat every day. We always have enough, even when we are completely broke. Praise God for 2 healthy children and a husband who has gotten so much more healthy in the past few months.