Woman to Woman
1st Thursday CONNECT
It just so happens that we will be meeting this Thursday, March 7, for 1st Thursday CONNECT. Since it is March, we are giving a nod to the green and the Irish and having a baked potato bar plus a very special sweet treat you won’t want to miss.
March 7th also just so happens to be the eve of the International Women’s Day. Though we don’t celebrate that day because we feel the need of a special day for women, nor to make any demands, we do celebrate the fact that God created us male and female in His image, and He declared His creation “very good.” It is very good to be a woman and very good for us to talk often about what it means to be a Christian woman, so womanhood has become the theme for the evening. It just so happens that we will be filling bags with feminine products for women in need through Love, INC. If you signed up to purchase products, please bring them Thursday evening. And, it just so happens that we are finishing up the book of Ruth, one of the two books in the Bible named for a woman and written about women. Pretty cool how plans coincidentally come together sometimes. If you’ve been reading the book of Ruth with us this month, you’ve probably noticed some of that “just so happened” language there, too, as God worked through the very real plans and choices of Naomi and Ruth to accomplish His purposes and promises.
We hope you can join us Thursday at 6:30! Let us know to count you in by signing up on our Facebook event or texting Marcia at 503-720-7197.
One-to-One Bible Reading
Each month we offer One-to-One Bible Reading resources to help women partner one-to-one to read and discuss a Bible “book of the month.” Up next? One-to-One Bible Reading will be in 1 Samuel for March. We have gone through Joshua where God gives Israel the land He has promised, through Ruth which happens during the time of the judges, and now on to the very next book of 1 Samuel when Israel rejects God and demands a human king. After this month, we will head back to the New Testament and the book of Acts.
If you ended up with a One-to-One Bible Reading binder that isn’t getting used or had to take a break, we would love to help you connect with another woman and get started! Contact us any time about how to do that. If it just isn’t going to work for you at this time and you would like to pass your binder along to another woman, we can help with that, too. All you need to do is put the binder in the Women’s Ministry mailbox at church, and we will recycle it.
Spring Cleaning
Spring is coming soon, at least according to the calendar, so “spring cleaning” is our theme for April. As you do a little spring cleaning this month, would you please save 3-5 items that you are ready to part with that still have good life left in them. The items need to be from any of these, but only these, categories: books, women’s clothing/accessories, pantry, home decor, kitchen, gardening/plants. Bring at least three, but no more than 5, items with you to 1st Thursday CONNECT on April 4th for some swapping fun!
Quotes
Even as we rightly oppose and strive to overcome a multitude of old prejudices, here is the most ancient and wonderful one—God’s judgment from the beginning that his creation, including us as men and women made in our Creator’s image, is very good. We can and must forever share God’s “prejudice” that to be a woman, as to be a man, is very good. ~Kathleen Nielson, Women & God
I don’t want anybody treating me as a ‘person’ rather than as a woman. Our sexual differences are the terms of our life, and to obscure them in any way is to weaken the very fabric of life itself. Some women fondly imagine a new beginning of liberty, but it is in reality a new bondage, more bitter than anything they seek to be liberated from. ~Elisabeth Elliot, Let Me Be a Woman
I wonder if we can all agree that how we feel about being a woman doesn’t have any bearing at all on what we are. We may feel like we don’t fit the mold, but God calls us to live in a way that shatters the world’s expectations. So in our misfit feelings, he has actually given us a gift. Our misfit feelings don’t change reality. We are women. When we act, when we do whatever it is we do, we do so as women, and we become a living narrative that models womanhood to those around us, for good or ill. ~Abigail Dodds, (A)Typical Woman: Free, Whole, and Called in Christ
LINKS
The Daily Grace Podcast is a new podcast to encourage and equip women to seek God in His Word. Episode 4 on the Story of Scripture is a helpful explanation of Biblical Theology with an example from Ruth.
How to Grow Newer When You’re Not Growing Younger by Abigail Dodds @The Gospel Coalition.
When Disappointment Digs Ditches in Your Heart by Samantha Nieves @True Woman.
Women’s Training Network, a conference for women put on by The Gospel Coalition, will be held in the Portland area, April 12-13. If you would like to attend with a group of women from New Life Church, register online, and let us know you plan to attend. We will arrange carpooling in April.
(Resources are reviewed but may not always reflect the views of New Life Church.)