Tuesday 6 March 2012

Hebrews 10:5-10

It's been a bit of a busy couple of days here so I've not had a chance to write the posts that I've wanted to write about our Bible study. it is going really well so I'm pleased with our progress.
The programme we are following starts with verses which show that God had a plan for Jesus Christ to come to teach us and die for our sins.

We looked at Hebrews 10:5-10
(5) Therefore, when He came into the world, He said:
"Sacrifice and offering You did not desire,
But a body You have prepared for Me.
(6) In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin
You had no pleasure.
(7) Then I said, 'Behold, I have come-
In the volume of the book it is written of Me-
To do Your will, O God.'"

(8) Previously saying, "Sacrifice and offering, burnt offerings, and offerings for sin You did not desire, nor had pleasure in them" (which are offered according to the law), (9) then He said, "Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God." He takes away the first that He may establish the second. (10) By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

I think this shows really well exactly what the Lord's plan was. I felt really emotional when Ivan read 40:9-10. Can you imagine giving up so much to save all of us?

Sunday 4 March 2012

Reading the Bible

We've been dipping into our Bible every day but we've been trying to work out a good way of reading it all. We started off just opening it at a page and scanning it until we found something which we thought was interesting. But the problem with doing it like that is that we weren't getting the full message from what we were reading.

So then we went to the very beginning and started trying to read it straight through. But we were struggling with it that way. It seemed like there was so much to take in. I mentioned this to a friend and said that we were trying to read the whole Bible but we felt like we were floundering and she suggested that we try reading it in chronological order.

I never thought of doing it that way. She did a bit of searching on the internet and found us a massive PDF from thebible.net which also gives notes on the verses selected to read. I think it's designed to read through in a year, though we might take a little bit longer because we want to spent plenty of time reflecting on what we're reading.

I'm planning on blogging as we go and would be really grateful if people posted comments on my posts to share how they view the verses we are studying.

Saturday 3 March 2012

My Testimony

I'm just beginning my journey of faith but I thought I should share how I came to be where I am now.

I was orphaned at a young age and was raised by relatives with no real religion. We occasionally went to church, usually at Easter and at Christmas but I don't really have any positive memories of going. I remember going to Sunday School once or twice but we basically did colouring in and then went back into the main church for the end of the sermon.

I didn't feel like I was really missing out on anything then. I was happy and healthy. I did well at school and I had plenty of friends. But I think that there was always something in me that was looking for something more. I remember my religious education lessons at school, everyone thought they were a bit of a skive because we would have debates and you could get good marks without trying too hard.

But I liked my RE lessons. I kind of wanted to know more. I liked the idea of belonging to a group in that way but what I was learning didn't tally up with what I had experienced. And another thing bugged me. I couldn't understand how you could believe in something that you couldn't see. I didn't understand how to have faith.

Over time, after I left school I carried on going back to looking at the idea of faith. I went along to a meeting at a group with university but they seemed really relaxed about their Christianity. It didn't seem to gel with what I had read, they wore crosses and sang hymns and quoted verses from the Bible, but afterwards they were out drinking and clubbing and worse. So I stepped back again.

I met my husband, Ivan and we dated for a while before getting engaged and then married. We waited to start trying for a baby because already God was working in our lives and helping us to direct our beliefs. We spoke about it before we were married and decided that we wanted to raise our children in a 'proper family' with a mum and a dad who were married to each other.

We spoke often about how many kids we wanted. I'm not joking, it was The Sound of Music that kind of inspired us. We watched it one day and decided that we wanted a large family. I threw out the number 7 and Ivan agreed that it sounded like a good number. That was it decided, we wanted a large family. I started looking up blogs online about large families, and found that many of them had strong religious convictions, it seemed like the more I read, the more I agreed with the way they were raising their families. Something made sense and I felt a strong conviction that when the time came we would raise our family in the same way.

But God wanted us to wait. As time went on, it became apparant that there was a problem there which was going to stop us having babies. It's something which we're working on getting fixed, but it might take time.

I've never really prayed before but one night I went to bed and lay there awake long after Ivan fell asleep. I lay there 'wishing' for a baby, it was the last thing I remember thinking before I fell asleep, just wishing that some day I would have a baby.

That night I dreamt that I went upstairs in our house which looked quite different and there was a person dressed in white who handed me a baby all bundled up in a white blanket. When I took the baby the person (I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman) said "you are not barren". Then I woke up.

I'd never had a dream like that before and I puzzled about it for a few days before I opened up and told Ivan about the dream. He said that it sounded like something from the Bible. I looked it up on Google and found Deuteronomy 7:14 You shall be blessed above all peoples; there shall not be a male or female barren among you or among your livestock.

I have to admit, I thought it was a miracle or something. I went and took a pregnancy test straight away thinking that perhaps that was it and I was pregnant. It was negative. Looking back it's kind of funny that I thought that it was as simple as that.

Ivan suggested that perhaps we should pray on it. It was strange to hear him say that because I never prayed on something before and he had a similar religious upbringing to me. But we sat together and asked God to help us understand the message that He had given me. We sat in silence for a long time and then I picked up the Bible we had dug out from somewhere (neither of us remember where it came from, it's fantastic that we had it in the house). I opened it up and my eyes fell on Psalm 28:7.

I told Ivan that we just had to trust the Lord and have faith. So we set about trying to change our ways and shortly afterwards we welcomed Christ into our lives.

That's where we are now. We're learning together and it's exciting and new and scary all at the same time. I'm hoping that I can share our journey towards becoming parents along with our journey in our faith through this blog, and hopefully meet other likeminded people.

In the beginning...

OK, that was a bit cheesey.
After spending the last few years reading other people's blogs. I've decided to jump in and start one of my very own. Hopefully I can make mine look as pretty as everyone else's that I like to read, for the time being I'm just pleased that I've managed to work out how to make my pretty banner sit in the centre of the screen up there!

My name is Bridget, but you can call me BeeBee. I'm married to Ivan and we're hoping to start a family soon. We have been trying for the last two years, to no avail and we're currently undergoing tests to find out what might be wrong.

At the moment we're starting to look at adoption as a way to grow our family. We're trusting that the Lord will help show us the way.

I've taken my blog title from one of my favourite Bible verses, Psalm 28:7
The Lord is my strength and my shield;
My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped;
Therefore my heart greatly rejoices,
And with my song I will praise Him.