Gods Path Through Your Trials - Section 2

Becoming a Sable Women

This week we discussed Chapters 5, 6, 7 and 8 about becoming a Stable Woman.

We noticed that our weekly sermons at church seem to be running parallel to what we’re reading in book club… maybe God is telling us something.

This fortnight, Some of us took up Elizabeth’s challenge on page 39 “For one week keep a journal of your trials. Then evaluate them from God’s perspective, choose to count them as all joy, and record the positive results that come from making this godly choice…”

Some of us realised that we didn’t even think about the little trials in our life as being lessons, or counting them as joy… we just got on with it. It was a worthwhile exercise to help us step back, refocus and recognise the reality that God is active in all our trials, no matter how small. That there is something to learn in every little (and big) trial we face. There is always a purpose in every hardship we encounter and that it is to make us stronger… perseverance.

It took us back to the beautiful picture in Jerry Bridges ‘Discipline of Grace’ of God as the loving father guiding, leading and training us with sometimes painful but necessary lessons, to help us become the woman that He wants us to be.

On page 79-82 Elizabeth discusses a harvest of virtues. We felt that Elizabeth often speaks in absolutes, but situational context and perspective helps. For example, she discusses pain, sickness and tiredness, as being no excuse and we should just press on. Whilst it is true that we should always seek to remain faithful to our commitments, we also recognise that there are times when it is very difficult and we may need to ask for help, or take that pain killer but that this is not ‘giving up’. Sometimes the lesson to learn is asking for help, or being honest about your circumstances.

The encouragement to remain faithful in our commitments is however a timely exhortation given what we are seeing of ‘Generation Y’ as they take their place in the workforce and society. Many of this generation seem not to have been taught faithfulness, selfcontrol or commitment.