“Are you choosing God’s way or your way?”  by Lindsay Oldright

This is a frequent question in our family when we can feel disobedience on the horizon with our kids. But let’s be honest, it isn’t just a question for my kids, it‘s a question for my own heart. Often as I ask that question, I’m convicted about my own choices over the last few days. I often choose the easy path, the comfortable path, the path that sees my opinion as more righteous than others and proceeds to judge others as unrighteous.  

11 Ways God Instructs Us to Live and Grow Together in a Sisterhood of Faith

1. Be united to Christ and the family of God: Mark 1:15, John 1:12-13, 1 Cor 11:1, 2 Cor 5:14-15, Eph 1:7-10, Eph 2:19-22, Eph 4:4-16, 1 John 1:7, 1 John 3:1-3

2. Continually pursue community with each other: Heb 10:24-25, 1 John, 1 Cor 15:58, Acts 4:32

3. Have a growing active love for each other: 1 John 3:11, 1 John 3:23, 1 John 4:7, 1 John 4:11, 1 John 4:12, 2 John 5, Rom 13:8, John 15:17, John 15:12, John 13:34, John 13:35 John 13:34, 1 Thess 4:9, 1 Peter 3:8, I Peter 4:8, 1 Thess 3:12, Romans 12:10

My journey into the world of chronic pain began in the summer of 2007. I remember it well. I was serving at our Kids Town Camp when I was gripped with a pain so severe, I ended up in the ER. After hours on a morphine drip and many diagnostic tests, I was sent home with the diagnosis of idiopathic hydronephrosis or swelling and spasms of the kidney without known cause.

I had this severe spastic, throbbing, nauseating pain off and on for 12 years. In the beginning, I had some months free of this pain but ended up in the ER frequently with flare-ups. Gradually my episodes begin to increase, to whereby the summer of 2017, I was gripped with almost constant spasms and level 10 pain. I was home flat in bed for days begging for pain meds and relief. I felt alone, exhausted, and desperate.

Young Poppy was playing outside with friends when she stumbled, fell, and scraped her knee. She sat for a moment, crying, as she looked at her owie. Having heard her daughter’s cries, Mom met her at the door. She picked Poppy up, carried her to a chair, and sat there with Poppy on her lap. She gently rocked the girl, stroking her hair, and murmuring to her that she was okay, that her injury wasn’t too bad, and it would stop hurting soon. After a while, Poppy’s tears lessened, so she sat up and looked at Mom. With a hiccup, she wailed, “I wasn’t done playing and now all my friends will have left to go to the park without me…!” More tears threatened.

In women’s ministry, we believe what the Word of God teaches: God has appointed gifted men to teach what is in accord with sound doctrine (Titus 1) and to proclaim God’s Word to the church. Our first and highest priority is to encourage our women to make it their first and highest priority to listen to and receive with joy God’s Word that is proclaimed each week in the pulpit ministry of the Word by our pastors and then to encourage one another to be women of the Word by being in God’s Word daily.