We started a new women's Bible study at church, one that is going to require tissue every week. We never do studies that go this deep emotionally and, whoo, it's going to be a tough bunch of weeks!

The first week, none of us had our books yet, and even the group leaders (Edy and Kim) didn't get their books until three days before. They did a brief look-through of them. So it caught us all off guard when Jennie Allen (the author) talked about confessing our sins to each other, confessing the areas we feel most troubled, our "stuck places," and asked us to honestly share three of our "stuck areas" with the group.

We had a few minutes to write them down and think about them, and I wrote down 3 categories and bunches of subcategories under them, because I couldn't figure out what the real problems were.

My first one was my "Facebook ministry." I'd rather not go to much length to explain that here, but suffice to say for the last 2 years or so, I've attempted to use it to be a good witness to my non-Christian friends there. And it's been extremely discouraging, especially lately with all the red equal signs (symbolizing my friends' desires for homosexuals to be able to get married). I've dealt with a lot of anger surrounding that later, and I don't mean the holy kind. I mean the blazing, arrogant, self-righteous kind.

That was my second "stuck area" I listed, my struggles with anger. I have anger problems. :/ It reflects itself in a lot of areas in my life, and if you've ever read one of my honest-to-goodness rant entries here, you know what I'm talking about. I say terrible things. I act terrible ways. I don't beat myself up with guilt over them when they're through, although I usually feel sorry/convicted (and oftentimes too proud to truly admit it), but they never fully go away. I think they're ebbing, thank God, but not by any means over.

It was hard to admit that to the women at the Bible study, my anger problems. I felt deeply convicted even as I was writing it, and it led to my third item: Lack of compassion. That's been really getting me down lately, and it's tied directly to the anger problems and the Facebook ministry. But the fact of the matter is, it's not because I'm not a sensitive, normally compassionate person. I am. But I've been sensitive. I've been compassionate. I've thrown myself in front of metaphorical buses for people in the name of the Gospel, and you know what happened? I got hit. Hard. The way I put it in front of the group was, "What if they just throw your compassion right back in your face?" And then I couldn't say anymore because my voice was catching.

And I'm not at all saying that being hurt, even badly, is an excuse for allowing yourself to lack compassion. God calls us to compassion no matter how badly we've been hurt before--and more than that, He calls us to run into His arms for restoration when we do get hurt.

But I am explaining that getting hurt is why I've taken this intellectual faith of Stephen's and held onto it with such an iron grip so far. It's been a lot easier to stay unhurt when you stay intellectual about stuff, and steered away from compassion.

So yeah. I've known these were problems of mine for some time now, but I've just never had to admit them in such a raw way in front of other people before. So the next several weeks are going to be so hard, yet so good. I just hope other women can open up and be honest, too. They certainly were this last time, because, as I said, we were all caught off guard, but people can close up and prepare their hearts in the week before the next meeting. I should know--I'm fighting not to close up mine.

So anyway. Could definitely use some prayer, if you're interested, in the next few weeks as we all struggle through this very heart-deep study. Not ready!! :P

It's called Stuck by Jennie Allen.

Love,
Stephanie

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