A lesson from Peter and My Story

Today I'm sharing a story from the bible and how it spoke to me. 

I had a very big "Ah-ha" moment this Sunday at church.  The sermon was on the last chapter in John, chapter 21.  It was about Jesus appearing to his disciples, after his death, who were fishing.  They weren't having any luck at all.  After all Jesus didn't want them to be fishers of fish anymore, he called them to be fishers of men!  To spread God's glory for all to hear and know of his love.

They didn't recognize Jesus at first, who called out to them to throw their fishing nets to the right side of the boat.  My pastor made the point that these men used to be professional fishermen and to have someone tell them how and where to fish was slightly ironic. 

Once they listened to Jesus their nets were so full that they could barely bring it ashore!  It was then that Peter, who Jesus loved, realized it was Jesus speaking to them.  He jumped into the water to swim as fast as he could to get to Jesus. The story continues with a sharp reminder of Peter's past of denying the Lord before his death.

John 13:36-38

Simon Peter asked him, “Lord, where are you going?”

Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.”

Peter asked, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.”
Then Jesus answered, “Will you really lay down your life for me? Very truly I tell you, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!"

Peter's three denials of Jesus took place around a fire where he stood watching Jesus being arrested, and when he denied him for the third time a rooster crowed, exactly as Jesus said it would.

Now stay with me here, let's go back to Chapter 21 where Jesus and the fishermen are: Peter is now found again warming himself around a fire, remind you of a previous scene of Peter and the rooster crowing?  Maybe Jesus was reminding Peter of his past failure and was now telling him that even though he messed up in the past, he can and will be useful!  Every time Peter hears a rooster crowing he will probably remember his mistakes, but through Jesus death, Peter is redeemed and made clean.

Now, think about your life. What do you regret? If you could go back in time and change something, what would it be? Do you find the one thing that you wish you could change keeps popping back up in your life, repeating itself for you to be reminded over and over again of what you've done?!?!

I want this blog to be a place where I can be open and be myself, I want to share some of my past with you all today.  I am happily married to my high school sweetheart but there was a time that we weren't dating in college and we were both seeing someone else.  Long story short, I was 19 and gave birth to a beautiful baby girl two months shy of my 20th birthday.  I was young and unwed. 

I've been a believer in Jesus since I can remember, but obviously my past doesn't add up to that.  God has been really working on me the past few years to bring me to where my faith is today.  Every move we make with the Coast Guard has brought us to great church's where we have met inspiring people and learned more and more of Christianity.  Our family is working on becoming more like Jesus would have us to be but it's a challenge.





Romans 12:1-2 (MSG)Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

I found myself sitting in church, listening to this story of Peter and started to see the similarities in myself.  In the past I have made choices that weren't pleasing to God.  I'm reminded so often of these choices through the world around me.  I can't tell you how many times someone has said to me, "you don't look old enough to have a 12 year old."  I've often worried about people looking down on me and judging me for my past. 

Today starts a new reminder!  From now on when I tell people the ages of my children, 12, 7 and 2 it will serve as a proud reminder of what Jesus did for me!  His grace makes me clean and useful!   He paid it all, he paid for all of my sins and yours.  We no longer have to be reminded of our past mistakes as long as we go to him to repent and accept his forgiveness. 

I am so blessed to come to this wonderful realization.  I thank God for bringing me to this place, to this Pastor and church family for helping me to see just how great God really is. 

And just for the record, I'm so grateful that God blessed me with a beautiful daughter twelve almost thirteen years ago.  She is and will always be one of the BEST things that has ever happened to me.  She has helped me become the woman and mother I am today. 

A special thank you to my dear husband for accepting her and I into his life and being a wonderful Father figure and husband to our family!!! 

{This is a picture from our wedding day, one of my fondest memories!
He got down on his knees, read a poem to her and gave her a special heart necklace engraved with her initials.  Needless to say there wasn't one dry eye in the room!}

BSF {Bible Study Fellowship}

While we were in flight school a friend told me about a great bible study available in the area.  I took Little Sis with me to the information meeting, who was still an infant at the time, and found out that they didn't have room for her in their program.  It sounded like a great study but it just wasn't going to work out at the time. 

 

The program was BSF {Bible Study Fellowship}

BSF is an international bible study that is located in 38 different nations and has over 200,000 class members.  There are over 800 classes in the United States so there may be one wherever we move to next! They all study the same book or section in the bible at the same time, so if we move during the year I can probably pick right up where I left off.  

{That is definitely a great thing for us moving military families!}

 

This year is the study on the book of Genesis.  How appropriate is it that I'm starting my first ever in-depth bible study on the "beginning" of it all?! 

 

They offer classes during the day and evenings.  Little Sis and I are going to the day classes where they offer a preschool program for infants up to age six.  They will be learning Bible truths through Bible stories, verses and hymns: play time, snack time, quiet time and activities to go along with each lesson. 

 

I am so excited that Little Sis is going to be learning all these things at a young age, she is at a very impressionable age to teach her all about Jesus and how he loves her!  Speaking of which, I have to tell you that when we left BSF the other day she was sitting in her carseat and started to sing "Yes Jesus loves ME!" and then she said "Mommy, Jesus loves you too!".  That had to be one of the sweetest things ever!!

She sang herself to sleep yesterday at nap time with her new "bible" song, as she calls it :)

 

 

Here are a few pictures from our first BSF class

{all ready to go!  carrying Mommy's bible}

{We start out in the sanctuary where we sing a couple of hymns and have announcements.  Then we move into our small group to discuss last weeks notes from our study time at home and some fellowship.  That is followed by a message about next weeks study.}

{We decided to hit up one of our favorites for lunch}

A special thank you to my new sweet friend from church for inviting me to BSF.  I had completely forgotten about it since the first time I had been introduced to it!  I'm so excited to learn more and have a closer relationship with my Lord!

Good Morning Girls

Good Morning! 

I wanted to share a wonderful daily devotional plan that I've been participating with for the past couple of years.  The wonderful Courtney Joseph, from Women Living Well and her long time friend Angela offer Good Morning Girls for women all over the world for free.

What is Good Morning Girls?

"If you have never heard of Good Morning Girls before here’s a little explanation. “Good Morning Girls” is a title for a group of women who use email, Facebook, Twitter, Skype or text messaging to keep each other accountable for their quiet times.  The time of day doesn’t matter…..our focus is just being in God’s Word daily!"  

 

 

 

I've done their study on the book of James, 1 John, Proverbs 31, and Sally Clarkson's book "The Ministry of Motherhood". 

 

You don't have to be a bible scholar to do this, in fact this was some of the first real bible reading I've done in a long time, honestly other than reading the bible in sunday school growing up, I've probably only opened the bible a few times before finding this study.  They take it slowly and you only read a couple verses at a time making it easy for beginners. 

 

If your looking for some accountability consider forming or joining a group by visiting the Good Morning Girls website or Facebook page for more information.

 

A big thank you to Courtney, Angela and all the women who work hard to provide this awesome opportunity!