I needed it. And I knew it. I felt disconnected and isolated, but my time was a limited currency. Was I to spend it here? Yes. To Women’s Bible Study, Thursday mornings, I said, “Yes.”
Mom had a tragic outcome for a major surgery we were assured would help her. This thief of independence and dignity dragged her, my beautiful and godly mama, into a season of diminished quality of life. It pulled me along after her into a season of being her primary caregiver with all its necessary sidebars of limited involvement, interaction, and connectedness woven throughout what used to be the normalcy of life before what became known as “the unspeakable event.” These were minor trade-offs for the honor of serving her, but I swiftly learned the “self-care” deal is real. She required around-the-clock care and much physical support.
God sent a helper three mornings a week. Thursday morning Bible Study opened a window, an opportunity to reconnect with my church and the world of sweet women—younger and older, where heads bowed together over the Scriptures while holding each other close. Where we entrusted our stories and the ordinaries of our every day to one another. I traveled with these sweet girls as Jen Wilkins led us into Exodus. I left each week amazed anew at the Hand and Plan of God—moving His people out of Egypt and gifting them with the law in all its layers of meaning—and learning deeply about God’s moving to get Egypt out of his people. Bible culturalist Kristi McLelland led us into Jesus’s first-century world. We feasted at the Banquet Table of His Word, learned to view it through an ancient Eastern lens, then left spellbound, hungry still, at the fuller, richer treasures of the Scriptures when viewed in this context. My small group of ladies decided we could not stop. We tackled McLelland’s “Jesus & Women,” then I discovered BEMA and Bible Recap. I jumped in the deep end with Wilkins and English’s “You Are a Theologian.” Oh. My. Goodness.
Women’s Bible Study was God’s perfect gift to me, as all His gifts are always. Perfect. It was the poised and ready point He set me on for an unexpectedly new, fresh, and exciting leg of my faith journey with Him. Perhaps it’s your time. Say, “Yes!”
The new term for Women’s Bible Study begins mid-September on both Wednesday evenings and Thursday mornings with “When You Pray” by six powerful writers of women’s Bible study materials, Wilkins and McLelland included! Use the link below for details and to sign up.
Meet the Author!
Ricki Robertson is “Honey” to Jim, “Mom” to three adult sons, “Mama Ricki” to two daughters-in-love, and “Grammy” to two granddaughters. She is a happily retired middle school English teacher whose claim to fame is having had former Council Road ministers Matt McLain and Makenzie Magnus Yeary as her seventh-grade stellar students. A member of CRBC since 1997, she can be found reading with Heavenly during Whiz Kids (yes, really-her name is Heavenly), some Sundays making the trek to the secret Council Road organ chamber to make some serious racket on the oldest working musical instrument of the church, and other days pursuing her semi-professional pickleball dream career on the Cube courts – unless it’s Women’s Bible Study morning.