Life's little gifts.

We've been having a lot of rain and thunder lately. Tonight I was driving home from small group (like a Bible study) and I kept seeing all of these flashes of lightning off in the distance. Have you ever just thought about how beautiful a storm can be? It almost makes me excited when a storm is coming, because I know that I can get cozied up in my apartment and just hear the powerful rain and roars on the outside. Tonight, our small group (which is working on Ruth) started getting off on a tangent (typical) and we were wondering if when you get to Heaven, if you just know all of the mysteries of the Earth. We talked about evolution, outer space, life before Jesus, God's wisdom, stuff like that. Well, I left there feeling very analytical. I started wondering about the lightning. I honestly started wondering why God made lightning. There's not really a purpose for it. It doesn't water the earth. I was thinking about it, and I realized that it just adds to the power of a good storm. Storms always remind me of the amazing power of God. You can't control a storm. They wipe out whole towns in a single instant and there is nothing we can do but watch. It's kind of crazy. I feel like God made lightning to amaze us, and remind us of his presence. Remind us just how powerful he is. You hear about Greek gods like Zeus throwing lightning bolts down at the earth, well, maybe God really does do that. Not necessarily to harm anyone, just to show us that he controls light.. electricity.. He can harness a power so great. Something tells me I dug a little too deep into that one, and I'm probably wrong, but it's kind of fun to think about it. Even though lightning used to terrify me, now I kind of like it when God gives us that little reminder. And, in a way, it's a fun and pretty darn incredible light show :)

On the topic of small groups, I absolutely love them. I love being able to get with a group of girls and just be able to talk about God and the mysteries of life. We just started working on the book "The Gospel of Ruth", and I'm really excited about it. Ruth was such an amazing woman. I can't help but be so grateful that God put such amazing women, like Ruth, on the earth so that later generations could see that there were strong women in those days. Women who bent the rules of society to obey good. Ruth had so much obedience and trust in the Lord. Not only was she a woman, but she was a foreigner and a widower. Not such great prospects for a woman in that time period. This story just shows that when you obey God and love and trust Him with all of your heart, you can be greatly rewarded. I can't wait to see what I learn this summer about an incredible woman of God. I am so grateful that I live in a country that allows me to freely worship with a group of girls and have such deep and meaningful conversations. I am blessed. I only hope that someday I can bless someone that doesn't have that same privilege... Really, I do.

Alrighty, well this has been fun :)
Nighty night.