Rooted & Blooming

This essay is a follow up to the Extraordinary Women of the Bible study. We recommend first completing your lesson and discussing it with your group before reading this post. Where do you meet Jesus?By: Amanda Hickernell Where is a good place to meet God? We often think the location needs to be grand in order to match the majesty of our king. After all, God met his people on high mountaintops, in the vast wilderness, and the holy temple. But God also met his people in an ordinary tent, from a nearby bush, and on the dusty road. The location doesn’t...

This essay is a follow up to the Extraordinary Women of the Bible study. We recommend first completing your lesson and discussing it with your group before reading this post. Who do you run to?By: Dorabeth Hickernell Who is your “go-to” person when you desperately need to vent about something? Who is your “first-call” when you find yourself in a crisis? For the sisters, Mary and Martha, their ‘go-to’ and ‘first-call’ was Jesus. Listening in on some of their conversations recorded in the Bible, we can tell by the way they talk to Jesus that Mary and Martha had developed a close...

This essay is a follow up to the Extraordinary Women of the Bible study. We recommend first completing your lesson and discussing it with your group before reading this post. Has has God surprised you?By: Dorabeth Hickernell Mary, a descendant of David in the tribe of Judah, was a very young woman when she received a most unexpected visitor who delivered what seemed like a wild and crazy message from God. The messenger claimed that Mary would soon find herself pregnant even though she had never had sex. Even more startling, her baby would be the long-awaited Messiah, the promised king who...

This essay is a follow up to the Extraordinary Women of the Bible study. We recommend first completing your lesson and discussing it with your group before reading this post. What are you waiting for?By: Dorabeth Hickernell Are you waiting for something?How long have you been waiting? Days? Months? Years?What have you been doing while you are waiting? In Luke 1, it is recorded that Elizabeth, wife of the priest Zechariah, was waiting for a baby. Elizabeth had been waiting for a child for nearly her entire life. The Bible describes her as an old woman, barren and ashamed. Throughout her life, Elizabeth...

This essay is a follow up to the Extraordinary Women of the Bible study. We recommend first completing your lesson and discussing it with your group before reading this post. Where has God placed you?By: Amanda Hickernell We all have moments where we think: Am I in the right spot? What am I doing here? God, is this where I am supposed to be? I bet Esther had those same thoughts. Esther was a young orphan girl who was taken into the king’s harem, as one of many candidates to become queen. She was a Jewish girl, but she kept her nationality...