A Woman after God's Own Heart: A Review and Personal Thoughts

*dedicated to Serenity3-0

Over the past 45 days or so, I've been working through a most interesting workbook.

A Woman After God's Own Heart Workbook by Elizabeth George.

It came along at a time when I was just really sad and upset and didn't know what to do with myself.

Serenity sent me an email about some book she wanted me to work through with her.

(I think she has annointed me her personal chaperone or something, lol)...

I immediately saw it as something that would help me to get some type of focus back into my life. Sure, I was doing my day to day things, still trudging along, but I needed something to get my mind back where it needed to be.

And this book was definitely the key to that.

It took 2 hours worth of driving to find it (I had it held at one bookstore on the southside, but had gone to the wrong store), but I finally found it. I sent her a text saying "I must really love you, because I have been driving a long time trying to cop this book).

Now, reading with Serenity is a funky situation. It is close to impossible to read a book with her. I do better to read and discuss a book with The LBeezy. That works well with us.

But not with Serenity.

Scenario:

"Chicken [my pet name for serenity], we gonna read 3 chapters a day."
"Okay," she says.
"Are you sure, Chicken?"
"Yes. that'll work," she replies.
"Okay, don't jump ahead."
"I won't."

Next thing you know, I get a text saying "I finished the book."

Meanwhile, I'm stuck back on chapter 4. I read slow, at the pace Miss Celie was reading when she was first learning to read that Oliver Twist book. Not sure how I got a doctorate degree with my reading skills, but it is what it is.

Serenity knows this and outpaces me to the point of finishing the book in a couple days.

Then I call her up and verbally shank her REAL good. To which she laughs.

Sigh. Baby sistas can be a problem.

But this book was different. It meant sitting down with one lesson a day, and doing a lot of writing and thinking. That slows everything waaaay down. So she was at least able to stay on program, although she flippantly mentioned in some post that she wanted to do more, and she knew I would cuss her out if we did.

Girl, I wouldn't cuss you out. I would knock you upside the head with my Book of Cuss, though. LOL

Our plan was to read a lesson a day, even on the weekends. There were 45 lessons. We would discuss it via email, and on the weekends, via facebook email. Last weekend, I was slack about putting my thoughts up in facebook email, and that chick called me and we had a phone discussion (Don't do that again, girl. I was trying to crochet and you threw me off). This worked pretty well.

But today, we've done the last lesson, so we are finished. And this book was the focal point of last quarter. It really truly helped me get back focused on what is truly important. It is still hard to keep my attention on what is truly important, with all the stress I've been experiencing on the job lately, but I intend to go back through certain lessons that helped me the most.

I think Serenity has been giving her thoughts on and off about this workbook. You have to search for them, as she posts 2384 times a day, lol... But I can tell you from our daily discussions that it has had a positive affect on her... and me too.

But I haven't given my thoughts on blog...

Anyway, I wanted to go over some of the things I learned from this book...

1. It was a great way to learn to study your bible if you have no idea how to do that. I like the way it was set up: whatever the subject matter was, there were several scripture you needed to look up concerning it. Most memorable were the scripture involving many of the people of the bible, people who not only made good decisions, but people caught up in really bad situations and making bad decisions. This workbook really forced me to sift through that and think about it, and it's application to myself.

2. There was a hard focus on the quality of one's prayer life. And if you don't know how to pray or what to pray about, this is THE workbook to get to COMPLETELY solve the issue in your life.
I pray, and get a lot of answered prayer, but this book forced me to write a lot of my personal issues down and to immediately pray about them.

The most critical and poignant question asked in this book was the following:

What life concerns are robbing you of your peace at this very moment?

I challenge you to sit down and answer that question... NOT in my comment section, but on paper, quietly to yourself.

Me and my friend spent some time journaling about this when I was vacationing in sunny Mexico last month. She's a journalling sister, so we were down for that.

I answered it, and it helped me fill in many of the cracks in my prayer life, and I've gotten many good results behind that. We had some pretty candid discussions about that. I know Serenity has formed a pretty good prayer journal behind this, and so have I. I think Serenity has developed a pretty good knack for praying and interceding for others, and that's a VERY good thing.

I plan on sitting down and writing a personal answer to the aforementioned question once a month or so, just to keep my prayer life centered.

3. There was much discussion on decision making. Again, if you are having trouble making decisions, this book will jack you up out of that. One of the most important truths I read in the book, and there was much scripture to back it up is:

Every decision you make either progresses your spiritual growth or inhibits your spiritual growth.

A short statement, but I really had to think about it, and it is most definitely true.

4. There were 2 weeks worth of lessons on being a proper wife and mother. I am neither one of these, as I am not married and I don't have any children. But suprisingly, this was one of the parts of the book that Serenity and I had the most discussion about. It caused me to reflect on my failed marriage quite a bit, which I didn't expect. And there's much that needs to be known if I ever decided to marry again. A suprisingly good section indeed.

5. I found the one week section on building, maintaining, and watching over your home to be very good. I got A LOT of good things done around my house that week. A lot.

6. Each lesson ended with a real life scenario, and we were to describe how we would deal with that situation, or how we would counsel these people. The problem was, some of these scenarios were some straight up craziness, i.e., they would make a helluva Lifetime movie. I wailed and hollered about this. Serenity was calm about it all. I know the author must've picked these up from real life situations, and I learned from it that we all have our own problems, and no matter how bad it looks, there are way to deal with it.

7. I learned overall, and this was a common theme of the book, that you must be continuously pouring into other's spirits. You can't be like the Dead sea: like standing water, never giving, never receiving. Always share what you are learning, always be giving into another person or situation... Do some things to help others grow or get ahead, and it will in turn help you.

Very good lesson... and it gives you a little glimpse (for those who know me) of why I do what I do. The discussions in this workbook will strenghthen me in that direction.

7. The most helpful sections to me were those on spiritual growth in many areas (giving, mental, social, service to others). It provided a good roadmap for such, and a guage for where I'm at. I must admit that I got terribly critical of myself in some of our discussions, because there is soooo much stuff that I can be doing, to which Serenity hollered

"You're one of the best people I know, LadyLee".

*Lee kicks the hard lip quiver*

Thanks for the endorsement, Chicken.

(Inside joke... don't get mad at me. This is my pet name for her, and for some reason she likes it, lol).

There was so much more that I learned from this workbook, but won't talk about here, in an effort to be brief (which you KNOW is impossible for me).

Thanks Serenity for allowing me to chaperone you through this workbook, lol. You know, as a big sister, I have to continuously monitor your activities.

I know you were thinking to yourself "What can I do to pick Leezie up off the floor?" because I was in such a bad place emotionally after Nikki's passing. No one knew what to do with me, but this helped me get back some semblance of normalcy and going forward. One of the things I will forever rememeber about my recent vacaction in the Mayan Riviera was waking up in the mornings before dawn, saying my prayers, and working on my workbook lesson for the day...

So I thank you for that...

Nothing like a Chicken swooping down out the sky and coming to the rescue.

You're a good friend indeed, Ma.

Sooo... I will continue to reference this book. I didn't write in my book, but put aside a journal for my answers and thoughts. I have 50 pages of good material in my journal to guide me in the right direction. It really set me on course to some important things, and helped me understand the who, the what, the why and the how to getting my spiritual growth together, and things I need to change.

So, I said I was giving away a third book, and this is it.

So, this is part of my quarterly personal assessment spiel... and I'm already giving away 2 other books...

I'm giving away this one too, along with a nice journal.

Now you better comment if you want a chance to win. I have A LOT of Serenity lurkers over in these parts. That chick has been hollering about this workbook, and I haven't. (I leave that up to her, as she posts 592 times a day).

So any commenting this week and last week is up for the drawing.

If you don't win... get this book. There is something in it that will steer you in the right direction.