Here’s a little blurb from next year’s study. I hope you’re planning, even as we are about half-way through the current study, to keep the Dig, as a part of your world through 2026 and 2027. I can’t imagine mine anymore without it. His word is so powerful for us. This quiet week of being in it transforms me every year, bringing me to repentance about my recurring discouragement or apathy (and really, lots of other things), and bringing me to a new level of awe at the two-edged sword I bring with me to this hotel.
For those who love to dig (not just in the Word, but at me, for the way I lose my Bible), I did lose it deep under the front seat of a rental car–a car with which I am unfamiliar in the middle of this sabbatical, and I thought I would just lie down and cry. But I went out in the frigid temps as soon as the sun came up the next morning and I felt like that woman in Luke 15, only I had no neighbors to call and rejoice with. But I did kiss that Dickson on the elevator, as traveled back up. (I do think the sweet girl who changes out my trash bag each day is shocked at the library in here!)
I’m praying for the diggers and all the women who study in any format. The WORD is the important thing. Not Digging Deep. Not the Dickson. Not this writing week. THE WORD!
Here’s the blurb:
Now let’s return once more to Jeremiah 15 and notice a different kind of separation that God orchestrates. Notice now verses 15-18. Read and write down the painful phrases from the paragraph.
I include this paragraph for our study because we have so many persevering women in this study group. So many of you have made monumental changes in your lives to be pleasing to God. Some of you have suffered mocking, as Jeremiah mentions. Some of you have surrendered positions, jobs and family relations to serve God. Some of you have been isolated, even being rebuffed by husbands or children for remaining steadfast in your faith. It is for your strength that I want to notice how Jeremiah, the strong, weeping prophet, felt.
This, too, is separation. Our lives on earth are testing grounds. One of the most painful of possible results of faithfulness is isolation.
Thankfully, our Lord gave us many examples of those who stood alone, but stood victoriously. Choose one of the following and go and read his/her story of alone-ness; being alone because of righteousness (not perfection, but right-doing.) For the one you choose, find a passage that shows that God had never forsaken him/her. How did these good people feel in a time of standing alone? (If you are ambitious, you can do them all!)
Job—Job 1,2,40,41
Joseph—Genesis 37, 39, 47
Elijah—1 Kings 17-19
Mordecai—the book of Esther
Habakkuk—the book off Habakkuk, prophet re: the fall of Babylon after Judah had been refined in that crucible.
Paul—the book of 2 Timothy
Mary, the mother of the Lord —John 16-20
Okay, I love the diggers! Pray for women who are studying. The two recent baptisms have kept me rejoicing through this frigid week! (Oh, and zooming in will not help you, Leslie Hamby! I deleted one picture I had on here, because it definitely would have given it away! =) 
