Today's Devotional Thought
May 01, 2012 by Rachel Piferi
Unplanned Blessings
Today is one of my favorite days of the week. My favorite day is, without a doubt, Sunday. But Tuesdays and Thursdays run a close second because they are Bible Study days!! On Tuesdays, Wendy and I spend time preparing for Bible Study during the day and then in the evening we spend a couple of precious hours with our Bible Study sisters. And then we do it again on Thursday mornings with another group of ladies from our church. I absolutely love sitting around with these women laughing, crying, and learning about the Lord.
We talk about it all. Those of you who are in Bible Studies across this country know what I am talking about. We can go from laughing about something one of our children said to crying about how God sent us the perfect verse right at the moment that we needed to hear it. These women challenge me, encourage me, support me, and inspire me as we all are listening to what God has for us and growing into who he wants us to be.
As I sit in that classroom week after week, I am simply amazed at the awesome opportunity I have to be a part of this group of women at such a time as this. Every now and then, when I am in that room in our sweet country church, my mind wanders back a couple of years to a time when a different woman dressed in business clothes stood before a group of aspiring doctors and lawyers. A time when I stood in a large, ornate, somewhat pompous university lecture hall as 400 students wrote down everything I said with hopes of acing their final on route to the next semester {or typed my words into a Word document while Facebook was also up on their laptop screens}. A time when I wasn't teaching the real secret to life, but rather was teaching them models of health and illness, stress and coping, and various theories of personality.
A different time indeed.
A different woman, in fact.
A woman not nearly as blessed as the one who types to you today.
As a teacher, I love to watch students' eyes light up as they understand a concept. I loved unfolding a complex theory to my students and watching them "get it." Watching them go from not understanding something to being able to teach it to another group of students in another semester as my teaching assistant.
It's what we live for as teachers. Watching the light bulb come on.
But, it is nothing compared to watching someone's spiritual light bulb come on. Watching a life being changed by the light of the world.
It's nothing compared to sitting in a small country church with a precious group of ladies and studying God's Word together.
If I am honest, there are some days that I wake up in my small town and wonder how I got here. How did I go from standing in front of hundreds of eager young minds hanging on my every word to sitting alongside a group of sweet ladies who have me hanging on their every word?
How did things change so much and so fast? And in a way that I would have never imagined 3 years ago?
God.
That's how.
And I have never felt so blessed in my entire life.
Yesterday, I shared my favorite verse with you. And, it is today's verse as well. God can do anything, you know. Far more than you can ever imagine, or request, or guess in your wildest dreams!
Trust me. I'm living the adventure that following God involves. It is wild and it is radically different than I could have ever imagined.
I pray that you go on the adventure that God has for you. And be prepared for it to take a far different form than you may have ever imagined.
And be prepared to be blessed beyond comprehension!
December