“In the security of our relationship with Christ, God wants us to ask questions and look for answers that usher us into the depths of His redeeming love. He wants to give us the courage to live in the promise that He offers hope for our future despite the pain of our past.”
from Chapter 4, A Confident Heart
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Our Word for the week: HOPE
(Download in a PDF or download in MSWord). Please print it and post it everywhere this week.
HIS Word for us this week:
“May the God of hope fill [me] with all joy and peace as [I] trust in him, so that [I] may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13, NIV
Our Assignment for Today:
- Read the prayer at the end of Chapter 4 to begin your day. Start or continue reading chapter 4.
Remember, take your time and highlight or underline sentences that resonate in your heart. - Let’s commit to memorize this week’s verse together :)!
My friend Heather is a Word girl!! When she was in college she performed in over 14 plays and memorized hundreds of lines, so I’ve asked her to share some tips to help us hide God’s Word in our hearts this week. Here are a few she shared. I’ll post more each week.
Ideas for Memorizing Scripture
- Write the scripture on several index cards or post-it notes and place them in areas where you will see them frequently throughout the day. Examples: on the bathroom mirror, refrigerator door, in the car, at work, etc…
- Get a stack of index cards and on each one write one or two words from the verse, including the reference. Shuffle them up and see if you can put them in the correct order again. Save the cards and reuse common words found in other verses.
- Send the verse to friends and family by typing, texting, or writing it out by hand. You can look at the verse, but do not copy and paste! Try writing it at least once a day.
- Study with a friend, your spouse, or teach it to your kids! Quiz each other and keep each other on track. What a great way for families to spend time in the Word together!
- Change the wall paper on your computer to an image that has your Bible verse.
Connecting in Community:
As we read chapter4 this week, let’s share our hearts below – answers to the questions, sentences we’re highlighting, thoughts we’re thinking, feelings and fears we’re experiencing. This can be a hard chapter for some because it addresses our past and our pain. Let’s pray for each other each day and commit to memorize this week’s verse together! If you are in, leave a comment by clicking on “share your thoughts” and tell us how you plan to memorize it. I’m writing it on a ceramic plate in my kitchen. I’ll be praying it for you every time I see it.
REMEMBER: If you are reading this via email, click here to return to my website to connect in community. That is the best part of an online study, so I hope to see you there!
Then put your orchid’s pot on top of the pebbles or gravel.
If you grow basil and it’s not getting enough light, the first signal you’ll get is that it will
start to get ‘leggy’ – i. No matter what type of plants the urban dweller elects to grow for culinary
purposes, it’s important that the flowers of these
plants be snipped off before they set seed.
This chapter was the first chapter I wrote a bunch of notes in the margin. When I look back at my notes alot of the are “how can I do this”. When I read page 66 ” If God loves me why…?” I thought YES! why..why why… why does this stuff happen to me. And then I got too ” When our questions make us doubt God’s heart, our pain can lead to bitterness and bondage”. That is how I feel sometimes, just plain ol bitterness. I just get angry and think why doesn’t anything ever go right and then I get worked up and get so anxious about all the things that are going wrong. It is so hard for me to allow God to just take my pain and show me my purpose. I hold on to that pain for some reason and I just feel more and more pain as the times goes on.
I was telling a friend how I just felt so tired recently, but what I didn’t tell them was I am just mentally exhausted. I’m tired of trying to change because I feel like I try and try but nothing happens and I really am not changing, or at least at a pace I think is good. I just want to give up. It’s like I know that if I just give it up to God everything will be better. I will feel relief and peace and then know that the healing will start and yes it might be painful but I will have God by my side. I can’t seem to do that though. Why can’t I just let go.?? I hear so many stories of people just letting go and I can’t see to do that. I hold it all in. I want to feel God’s love, I want to let myself feel god’s love. I don’t know why I am so resistant and it frustrates me. I need some prayers please.
My answer to question 3 stood out to me most. The question was…
“Read 2 Corinthians 1:3-4. How has God comforted you in your troubles so that you can comfort others with the same hope He has given you?”
My answer…
After my ex-boyfriend (of 6 years) disappeared from my life without warning or explanation, my self-confidence—which was already pretty much gone from being in a relationship with him— disappeared as well. I was sure that I would never be good enough for any man because if he didn’t want me, no one else would. But then I heard in a Bible study that God’s plans for my life far exceed my biggest hopes and dreams. This brought me great comfort and hope. And it has stuck with me for the past 2 years. Although I am still single and I have not been in a relationship since, I still hold onto that hope that God’s plans are bigger than anything my little human mind can imagine. I currently co-lead high school girls in our church’s youth group. Although this topic has yet to come up, I am prepared to share with them my story and how satan’s lies can tear you up and down, but God’s truth is renew and restore you.
Thank you, ladies for your hearts and sharing. I’m so very blessed by it. I just e-mailed this verse to my worship team from church…by heart. 🙂
Thank you ladies for sharing your hearts. The last year has been a huge struggle for me. I have struggled with anxiety and fears and even depression. It has made me feel unworthy and a failure as a Christian but.. But! What a powerful word! He has been faithful! He has never left me! His arms have carried me. He has let me cry and not even know why. I am seeing more clearly now. I am embracing His love and learning to live as a new person. Some days are easier than others but I have hope! I am excited about reading this book. I have to take breaks some just to digest it all but it is helping me heal. My God is faithful!
I plan to write the verse on notecards and place in car, at office, in bedroom. Also I plan to follow the suggestions of creating a notebook and listening to the Word.
I wanted to say that, although I am getting a late start on this week’s verse, I am very excited about memorizing it. Last week’s verse has really been helping to change my thought processes (something I need desperately). I wasn’t sure if I liked changing the pronouns from plural to singular, but I have to say it was a very effective way to enable me to say it as a prayer!
Praying for you all.
This is my first post, but I have been with you my sisters in Christ since the beginning. I can’t even put into words how much this study is helping me. My greatest lesson has been to admit to myself that I am not fine, good, or the other terms we use to hide how we feel. Answering the questions after each chapter has caused me to deal with a lot of hidden issues in my life and to shed ALOT of tears. I can honestly say today that I’m good, I’ll have to take tomorrow when it gets here. I am an intense note taker. I am about to start in my second notebook. When I write out the questions I write them down in personal form. I use the words, I, us, we, and our. Making it personal helps me to dig deeper into my inner woman to see what God wants me to face so I can turn it over to Him. Right now I am having a hard time allowing God to define the new role HE has put into my life. I am a first time author and sometimes I want to walk away from what I know has come from God. My book has allowed me to heal from so much of my past. One day I will share how God led me to write this book in only two months. It saved me from going into a state of depression. GOD is awesome, when we least expect it, HE shows Himself strong on our behalf for our good and His Glory. I will hold on to my confidence in God for I believe it will be richly rewarded, but it is hard some times. Take care and Be Blessed!
Hope you feel better soon Renne!!!1
I just started on my questions for chapter 4. Each question has taken a page each. And I’m only on Q3. I didn’t realize how much pain I was still holding onto. Through the timeline, which completely drained me, I was able to pin point a major source of my insecurities. I always thought ” insecure is just who I am, my DNA”. I never realized it was the side effect of some awful things I was subjected to as a child. I see how those events took control of my future. As painful and exhausting as the timeline was, I feel able to actually deal with those events. I may never be able to reach out to the people who caused them, but for my own healing, I can forgive them and forgive myself for falling into a vicious cycle. With Gods help, I feel ready. I am confident that He has not and never will leave me or forsake me. He will prepare my hands for battle, He will crush my enemy beneath my feet, and He will give me peace that surpasses all understanding.
I love to have cards in my pocket with His words and glance at them while I:
* Walk around the school to supervise the children.
* Lunch duty
* Putting on make-up
* Cleaning house
Find those moments while doing something else, to ponder on His words. Those little times do make a difference.
“Hope comes when we allow Jesus to search our hearts and bring truth into our wounded places”
I have many and they are hidden but I no longer want to “store them.” I want Him to heal my pain and comfort my brokenness.
I’ve been trying to focus and memorize the verse this week but it seems like our enemy is working overtime yet again. It would be easy to get discouraged but I refuse to do that. It’s exactly what Satan wants me to do. I’ve written the verse on note cards and in my journal. I have the note cards strategically placed around my house so I can read them throughout the day. Praying for God’s grace and strength to guide us all on our journey to discovering our own confident hearts.
I throw the word “hope” around and know what it means, but in my verse mapping for today I looked up the definition: HOPE: to expect with confidence; to desire with expectation of obtainment; to cherish a desire with anticipation.
Part of Romans 15:13 says we are to “overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit”. So…then what am I supposed to expect with confidence I ask? I read all of Chapter 15 and verses 1-2 stand out: (The Message) 1-2 Those of us who are strong and able in the faith need to step in and lend a hand to those who falter, and not just do what is most convenient for us. Strength is for service, not status. Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, “How can I help?”
WOW! lend a hand to those who falter? In this instance could that mean ME?
Not just do what is most convenient? Could that be look back at those hard places in my past?
Look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, “How can I help?” Does this mean be gentle with MYSELF and take time to help ME?
Maybe what I need to expect with confidence is that my past wounds can be healed, forgive where it needs to be done, ask for forgiveness and especially be forgiving of myself.
Wow… Renee thanks for sharing your story. I have just finished chapter 4 and watched the video. I have been blown away.
A couple of things have set sparks in my brain. ‘My husband would provide security and shelter for the little-girl-heart that was still crushed inside my adult body’
For many years now my husband has been my emotional security and shelter, my protector and provider. All the things I longed for as a child. When we met my husband was very active in the church, but over the years through 3 premature babies and 4 miscarriages along with the many issues that have come along with them over the last 18 years. As well as being hurt in a nasty church situation a few years ago he slowly drifted away from the Lord. My security and support in my christian walk is now gone, although I have a wonderful supportive church family, at home he wants nothing to do with it. I can not even speak of God in his presence without some criticism of the church in general. He doesn’t stop me going to church or bible study, but his negative, critical comments make me feel guilty for going.
The ministry God had begun leading us into as a young couple (nearly 20 years ago) was put on hold many years ago when the children were small as we dealt with the practicalities of their disabilities. Now, in their teens they are all managing well and as I began moving forward in the vision God gave us he has moved away.
Reading chapter 4 has made me realize that I do hold a huge amount of resentment toward my husband in regard not only in this and also for his walk in the world of pornography last year which nearly destroyed us. I am still dealing with the rejection and pain this has caused me. I don’t have my happily-ever-after I so desperately wanted and hoped for all my life. The dream of the loving, supportive family I never had.
So now, it is learning to let go and give it all to God and let him be the security and hope, the happily-ever-after I long for. Sounds so easy when you read it or write it down. It’s tough, it’s emotional but it’s life changing. I just have to believe that as God changes me he will change my husband too! 🙂
Thank you Renee and all you ladies, reading your stories of how God has/is leading you through healing to wholeness in Him is so encouraging me to continue in my journey and get complete breakthrough.. 🙂
I will write it on a notecard and keep it on my desk. I am nervous about this chapter, because it seems hard to process the hurts and pains of our past. I am praying that God will give me strength to complet this journey!
Hi everyone.
I am so behind this week, but it has been such a God filled, blessed week. Yesterdayy I finally finished the chapter the first time through. It is really hard for me to let God take away my past hurts. Fot example, mybPap passed away when I was 12. It wasn’t until late in High School that I was finally able to feel peace and let my God take away my feelings of guilt.
I also us the methods of multiple postings and repetition to memorize verses.
My daughter is a senior in high school and is taking her certified nursing assistant course. As part of this, she has been doing her clinic practice in a nursing home for the past week and a half. Last night she came home after watching a man die who had no family. He was alone — going soon to meet his wife in his eternal home. He held the rosery, the priest came, hospice came by… all-the-while physically fading away. She and her classmates stayed in his room praying and holding his hand. When she came home, she was very emotional — it had been a lot to process for a beautiful, compassionate young woman. This verse came to me today and I texted this to her….There is Hope for a dying man going home and there is Hope for a young girl to trust in His promises. I love watching God work!
amen
There is such pain in this world….but He is HOPE. I will text this verse to someone each day of the week. (both kids for sure! ). God Bless.
I never stopped to think that past hurts might be the cause of anger and frustration in my present. I always thought I had worked it all out with God. Over many years of working in ministry settings I have been hurt more often by the people that call themselves Christians than when I worked outside of ministry. Lately when things started getting ugly here where my husband is pastor I found myself reacting more quickly and more angrily. Thanks for pointing out that maybe there is still something I need to go back and work on to heal completely.