Verse 13

(I actually found this verse and wrote this June 26th... I just couldn't wait until the 1st!!!)

Don't y'all just love how the Holy Spirit is so personal and so faithful to speak to us through Scripture? I'm doing a study workbook that I picked up at Lifeway at the beginning of the summer called The Living Room Series - Ruth: Loss, Love, & Legacy by Kelly Minter. I had heard of her through Beth Moore's blog and another study called No Other Gods (which I fully intend to do at some point...). However, this one pretty much jumped off the shelf at me and I am completely confident that the Lord was guiding me to select it because He had a good work to do in me through it... It's one of those that seems to hit me exactly where I need it every single time I sit down with it. The part I love most about that is that I tend to be a little inconsistent, and yet it's all still perfectly timed. For example, there are some weeks when I spend time working on it each day. There are others, like the most recent, when for one reason or another, I seem to put it off for a few days. I've reached the part where Ruth goes to the threshing floor at Naomi's direction. This week I just wasn't feeling up for it. I didn't want to read about Ruth making a bold move and how Boaz responded... I wasn't interested in the love story. And yet, this morning, I made myself jump back into it... You know what? At least for today's lesson, it wasn't at all what I expected. It was about how Ruth had to take off her mourning garments and let go of her past in order to prepare herself for the next thing God was doing in her life. Yikes. Hit me right between the eyes. So all that to say, that's where my newest verse is coming from. It was included in my study today, and it was just what I know I need right now. I know that in isolation from the rest of the passage, it's a bit out of context - but I really just feel like the Lord knew I needed it. I love the power in the promise at the end... To make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert is like making something out of nothing. Sometimes I feel like that is what God is going to have to do in my life. Yet it's no coincidence that we love and serve a God who specializes in doing that very thing. :)

Jamey - Morris, AL

"Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert."

Isaiah 43:18-19 (ESV)