The End of an Era

There aren't many things left in my life that have been consistent for more than a couple of years. And now this one thing that has been very predictable for 9 years is changing. I've been involved with Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) for a long time. Monday nights have always found me with my group and Friday mornings I have committed to getting up early and preparing with the other leaders for our discussions on Monday nights.

Some of the leaders in that Friday morning circle have seen me through much change in my life. They were there when my parents moved to Ethiopia to understand the pain in letting them leave. When I became engaged and lamented not having my mom around to make wedding plans with, they volunteered to be 30 moms for me and one gave me a phone card to call my mom for a few minutes. Although we had Asher's name picked out long before his birth, the Bible study lesson that week when he was born happened to include the study of Jacob's sons, one of whom is Asher.

I've come to love Friday mornings with those women. Its there that I learned how to pray: on my knees, adoring God for who He is, thanking him for what He has done, and bringing requests to Him. It was on those mornings that I watched women I served with reveal they had just received diagnoses of terminal cancers and then over the months and couple of years, I watched them serve out the rest of their lives, never wanting to stop until they were physically unable. I learned what it means to rejoice over kids as they make choices to turn back to God. This spring I saw God answer the prayers to bring a new life into a fellow leader who was so real in her struggle with infertility. That group of women has taught me what it looks like to live as a Christian woman in each stage of life.

Its bittersweet to leave the group. I'm not leaving BSF altogether, but just switching to the day class, so that I can take Asher with me! Now that he's 2, he can go and learn verses, songs, and Bible lessons. I know that even at this young age, he will be taught truth and I pray that truth will remain in him and that he will never stop adding to it.

Here's my BSF commercial...if you have never attended a BSF class, it is an international organization with classes all around the world. There is a class finder on their web site: www.bsfinternational.org that will help you find a class near you! Next year we're all studying the life of Moses - what a great study!