Three Days of Wonderful.

Stayed here.

Dined.

Swam.

Gazed.

Biked.

Drove.

Anger

Best article on Anger that I've read:  The Constructive Displeasure of Mercy from the Journal of Biblical Counseling.

The Gift of Remembering.

Another kindness God has provided in this course is a biblical grid or lens to evaluate and analyze our past experiences - especially the last four very difficult and painful years that we experienced with our church and my health-validating the things we knew about God-his sovereignty and his purposes in our trials and suffering. 

We've been able to go back over the past few years, review and recount what was happening and trace God's hand in and on our lives - and see all the ways he was working, training, molding, discipling and changing us. Sometimes, in the middle of a trial, it's so hard to see beyond the pain and difficulty and we can be tempted to lose heart. Sometimes, it takes all your energy to just survive. 

Being able to think deeply and write about our experiences and see God's providential work in our circumstances has really been a gift to us. Ron is also taking the class and it is providing hours of wonderful conversation between us as we remember and rejoice in all that God did and is doing!

While the last four years were excruciatingly difficult - we can say with all honesty- we can count it all joy and are grateful for what God has done- and continues to do- in our hearts through that season. 

New Season

In the second week of January, I began my first course in the CCEF School of Biblical Counseling: Dynamics of Biblical Change.  I've been thinking about what to do with my time, now that most of the kids are gone and we're looking at an "empty nest" in the near future.  I had attended a CCEF conference last fall and started the process of investigating the possibility of enrolling. It's a big undertaking for me - so I've been a little hunkered down lately - immersing myself in studying. While it has been stretching, (I'm taking it for credit - so I'm doing all the reading, homework and writing papers) it also has been so very rewarding!

The unique thing about this program is that it's not just cold academics- the material we are working with is profound, rich and vibrant. We're studying resounding and redeeming truths that cut to the core of who we are and offer real answers to real problems.

The unexpected gift of this course has been the personal benefits of interacting with the topics (suffering, sin, anger, etc) and doing the heart-work ourselves and thereby being trained- "qualified" -to comfort others with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.