Moons, Detoxes and WHOOSH!

Hey, girls! It’s Raechel. I feel like we haven’t gotten to say “hey!” in a while. Lots of studying God’s Word together, yes. But it’s always nice to check in a little more personally in between plans! So…

 

How is the Gospel shaping you this year?

How have the fresh starts we’ve studied these past three weeks changed the way you are doing life? I don’t know about you, but I am grateful even now that with a new plan this week comes yet another fresh start to seek His face daily!

Our vision as a SheReadsTruth community is that we would be lovers of God’s Word, that we would be changed, and that our lives would reflect His glory. This means that our interaction with our Savior doesn’t end with a half an hour in the Word before breakfast. It means relationship, not checked boxes. It means Jesus isn’t asking for thirty minutes of your day. He’s asking for your whole day.

A friend in my Tuesday morning Bible Study recently likened herself to a moon, and Christ to the Sun. We cannot produce light on our own (Romans 7:18), but we are specifically created to reflect His light. At times, that light is eclipsed by things of the world, and other times we are full-moon image bearers of Glory! Such an encouraging picture of how we should be living in relationship with our Maker!

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This week we are going to begin a new plan – one that those of you who have been with us from the beginning have done before. It’s actually the very first plan we ever studied together as a community, and it was so life changing for so many of us that we want to do it again as an even larger community!

It’s a 5-week plan called Soul Detox by Craig Groeschel, and it’s going to be a great follow-up to the Fresh Start plan as we are still in the first month of a new year. We’ll begin tomorrow (so wait to click “start this plan” until then so we’re all on the same day!) and it will take us all the way to the 24th of February. Girls, this plan is a life-changer.

An important note: even though the plan will take place primarily on YouVerison (we won’t actually be able to share the content in blog post format), there will still be important daily discussion here on the SheReadsTruth site in the comments. That’s were the joy and authenticity and accountability of community takes place!

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And, since we haven’t been awesome about sharing calendar plans with y’all, and even though we’re not completely solid on dates yet, this is probably a great time to share our tentative schedule for Spring/Summer! (But seriously, this is loose – please don’t hold us to this exactly!!)

• Soul Detox (January 21-February 24)
• After Soul Detox we’d love to take a week to get real with y’all. You remember how Paul charged us in his letters to tell what God is doing? We want that to happen here! We will take several days as writers (and possibly community members!) to share – maybe even via video – where we have been, and where God is taking us. It will be a week of testifying to His faithfulness, fresh starts, comfort in trials and grace in our lives. (I’m just a leetle bit geeked about this…)
• Then, a plan we are currently writing called Songs of Ascent. It will cover Psalm 120-134 – the “traveling Psalms” that were actually written as songs to be sung as the Israelites ascended to Jerusalem for Passover. Which will land us beautifully in Jerusalem for…
• Holy Week. Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, from humiliation to exhalation, we will prepare our hearts and examine the scriptures as we study the cornerstone of our salvation – the cross.
• After that, beginning on April 1st we are going to do a neat new format for a Prayer Plan. We willl study six types of prayers, and with each type, we’ll take a day to study study scriptural instructions, a day to find Biblical examples, and then there will be a day for us to practice what the Bible has taught us. (You should see our pages of notes and Bible references – it’s going to be an amazing scripture bath and hopefully a game-changer in the way we commune with our God!)
• After the Prayer Plan, we have a strong desire to really Dig Deep. Like Old Testament, huge-chunks-at-a-time deep. Even whole books at a time. We’d love to find God with you all in the major and minor prophets – and perhaps elsewhere. We may write accompanying devotionals, or we may just soak it in each day with y’all and join the conversations in the comments. We are still praying about the format, length and resources for this time, but we trust that the Lord will reveal Himself to us in brand new ways and we’re seriously looking forward to this!
• Finally, we’d love to spend some time this summer studying Women in the Lineage of Christ. This will allow us to take time to study more Old Testament stories from a slightly more conversational perspective. It’s always a rewarding challenge to see the way every story in all of the Bible whispers His name.

 

Whoosh.

Yes, that’s what we like to say around here when we’ve just dumped a giant load of information.

Oh girls, Kacia and Jessi and I and the rest of the SRT team are just so incredibly grateful for you and blessed by you! You hold us accountable, you point us to Christ, you remind us why we’re doing what we’re doing. We serve a great God, don’t we? And He is at work All. The. Time.

Have a restful, blessed Sabbath, sisters. Looking forward to a good, clean Soul Detox with all you daughters of the King!