Sometimes it is so hard for “Grace believing” women (women who know the apostle Paul is our apostle and take a stand for this truth) to feel “connected” with other women of like faith. We feel lonely, for lack of someone to share our faith or struggles with. Some of our groups (local assemblies) are quite small and we may not have anyone in the group who is of similar age or life circumstances. Or else, we just lack the time to keep up our friendships.

The body of Christ, however, is our real “support group”, and there are many women just like us in need of fellowship, love, and support. Maybe now that we have the internet, the Lord would have us to use it to encourage one another.

I received an email from a dear friend and she said to keep the letters coming, because she said they help to spur her on to study the Word of God. She knows and I know that God’s Word is our real comfort. It is this Word that spurs us on to do the Lord’s will, after filling our minds with it! God’s Word renews our minds (Eph. 4:23) through knowledge (Col.3:10). This knowledge does not come from daily television shows, magazines, knowledge from the world, but only from the renewal that comes from the Word of God. IICor 4:16 says, “...We faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day,” and is “renewed in knowledge”.

Today, I suddenly realized I had not taken the time to eat anything. It was 1:00 p.m. and I was famished. I found I could not concentrate nor think clearly. At that point I had to take the time to make a salad, cut up some ham and cheese and take more time to eat it. How our spiritual need is like that of our fleshly bodies! We must take the time to “renew” ourselves spiritually on a regular basis, or else we become famished and cannot think clearly. I often hear some young woman say that she feels something is missing in her life. All too often this “something” is a spiritual need, and she is starving herself spiritually. What if I had eaten a Debbie cake (isn’t everyone from the South?) for lunch? An hour later I would have been hungry again. The Debbie cake would not have satisfied. So it is with the junk food this world gives us. It does not satisfy! Read John 4:1-39 this week.

I hope and pray that all of my dear “daughters” and “sisters” in the Lord will not just read the words written here, but will read the letters written to them by God himself. I trust that each of you will read the passages mentioned above, because the necessity for brevity prevents me from copying all of the verses. Nothing I nor anyone else can say will comfort you nor renew your spirit like the Word of God can.

On a lighter note, the other day my daughter-in-law, Kim, made the best apple pie I had ever tasted. It’s true and it was her first apple pie ever! I was thinking maybe it was that the crust tasted so good. It had a definite “buttery” taste. So, Kim, will you share the recipe with all of us? Or is it one of those, “I’ll give you the recipe when I’m on my deathbed” ones? (I have a friend who says she’ll give me her recipe for chicken & dumplings when she’s on her deathbed! Some of you know who this is and you know she is in her seventies!) Since it is the fall of the year why don’t we all share our best apple recipes, along with Kim? I am sure the younger women would appreciate this, (and our husbands, too).

Don’t forget your testimonies!
Happy “renewing”,
Mary Atwood, Grace Bible Church, Chattanooga