All the Ones in Between...

So, as we all know by now I am not the best at this blog thing but I want to be better so I am going to do a quick recap to catch all of you up on what we have learned the past few weeks. One of my favorite fruits we have studied is the fruit of patience. I think it’s my favorite because it’s the one I struggle with the most! We took a look into the life of Sarah, Abraham’s wife and we saw how your impatience has caused a world of hurt…literally. Because Sarah did not patiently wait on God for what He had directly promised her we still have conflict to this day! Not sure what I’m talking about? Ask your girls and see if they remember.

Kindness was probably one of the more exciting fruits we covered simply because we were able to immediately put it into practice. A small group of us headed out to the greatest place on earth, The Dollar Tree and we collected items for kids in Haiti. We then came back and packed them up in shoe boxes. Little did we know only one month later tragedy would strike through the horrible earthquake. God knew and it is now my prayer that our little act of kindness will serve to help these people more than we could have ever fathomed. Dorcas was our inspiration for this act of ‘kindness.’ She was a woman known in Scripture as very kind and giving. In fact, when she died the people to whom she showed kindness were so grieved, Peter was asked to bring her back to life. With God’s power he did and she was able to share her kindness to even more people.

Goodness and Faithfulness kind of went hand in hand. Though we studied them on different nights … some believe they were about the same person. For “Goodness” we looked at the Proverbs 31 woman and how as young girls we can begin to cultivate these characteristics even now. Ruth was our example of “Faithfulness” because of her love and loyalty to her mother-in-law Naomi. Did you know that many scholars believe Ruth was also the Proverbs 31 woman? Wow…I guess we can’t say that this woman is too good to be true.

So there you have it…we are now all up to date! Hopefully this will be a step in the right direction and the last two fruits will be blogged about on time! :)

I've Got Peace Like a River...

When looking at the fruit of peace we studied the life of Martha. We learned from her example how NOT to be worried and consumed with the things of this world. Instead, we should look to Jesus and lay all our worries and concerns at His feet. As girls this is a tough task but luckily with Jesus by our side we are never alone. “Peaceful Pics” of our evening coming soon!

Here are a few of our 'Barnababes' beside sweet little 'Joy.' Aren't they all so precious!? :) Btw, we missed you Erica, Danielle and Jenelle!

We are proud to introduce you to 'Joy' our happy little pumpkin.

This is a shot of all our girls craving and scooping away.

A couple of weeks ago we covered 'joy' and the life of Mary, Jesus' mother. In honor of this 'joyous' fruit of the spirit we carved a happy pumpkin. Everyone got to design a face and Ashley's drawing won!

I've Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy Down in My Heart...

Tonight we studied joy. We looked at the life of Mary, Jesus’ mother and saw how she displayed joy in the most confusing of times. We learned that this type of joy is not dependent on our circumstances, instead it is trusting in the Lord and finding hope in him no matter what. Mary’s honor of being the Messiah’s mom was not as glamorous as one my think. It was down right scary. She could have been killed for being pregnant as a single girl. Even if she wasn’t the chances were very good that Joseph would leave her, her family would disown her and she would be faced to raise a baby at a young age all by herself. Even though these were the consequences she could have faced she accepted her calling and humbly obeyed. She not only accepted her calling but she rejoiced in it. She knew the Lord would be faithful to her and she trusted Him enough to have joy in even the scariest of times. In the end we know that the Lord was faithful to her and He did not let any of the things happen, but let us not forget that Mary had to watch her precious baby boy die a painful and humiliating death only a short 33 years later. Though we should not worship Mary as divine we should definitely recognize her as a woman who possessed remarkable character, faith and joy in the midst of incredible and often challenging circumstances.

Stay tuned for pictures of last night’s activity! We had fun learning how the Lord cleans out the ‘goop’, fills us with His light and allows the joy that can only come from Him shine through. Can you guess what we did?

In response to the old diddy, ‘what’s love got to do, got to do with it?’… I say, pretty much everything. Tonight the Barnababes learned what it truly means to love someone with ‘agape’ love. We learned that ‘agape’ love is an unconditional love of sacrifice. A love that thinks of others better than itself and would even give up its life for someone else. Love is the first and according to Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, the greatest fruit of the spirit.

We took a look at the life of Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus (whom Jesus had raised from the dead). In John 12:1-8, we read of Mary’s great demonstration of ‘agape’ love for Jesus. We see Mary take a jar of expensive perfume (worth a whole year’s salary) and anoint the head and feet (Mt. & Mark's account) of Jesus. She even took it a step further when she used her hair to wash Jesus’ feet in the perfume. Now that is submission and ‘agape’ love! We read in 1 Corinthians 11:15 that in that day a woman’s ‘glory’ was her hair. Therefore we see that Mary used the best thing she had to wash the feet of her Lord.

We also observed another interesting aspect of this story, the foreshadowing of Jesus’ death. Mary did not quite understand what was about to happen to Jesus. It was not longer after Mary’s display of love that Jesus was crucified. Mary gave the best she had to show Jesus her love and Jesus gave all that He was to show his love for her and for us. Mary demonstrated agape love by using her ‘glory’ to wash the feet of Jesus. Jesus, though still fully God, left his ‘glory’ to come to earth, live as a man and display the ultimate act of agape love…death on a cross.

Oh and parents be sure to ask your girls what their activity for the night was. Trust me you will want to find out…I’ll give you a little hint…it’s a way they can show ‘agape’ style love to you!

Warring Spirits

Galatians 5 presents us with our choices...we can live in the Spirit or we can live in the flesh. You have to pick a side because as we learned these two spirits are at war with one another. The 'fruits of the flesh' include...sexual immorality, envy, selfishness, idolatry (good thing=god thing=bad thing...as our pastor would say), jealousy, outbursts of anger, dissension, murder, etc. The 'fruits of the Spirit' are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.

Yes, we all mess up and we all posses the fruit of the flesh at times, but the big difference is the team you are on. If you are on team spirit it means that you have trusted the Lord as your Savior and you serve Him. Because of this decision your good fruit starts to out weigh the bad. Please understand...you are NOT a Christian because you do these things...you do these things because you are a Christian. If you are on team flesh you serve yourself. Yes, sometimes you will do seemingly 'good things'...things that may even mimic the fruits of the spirit, but the real question is, who are you doing them for? Not Jesus but yourself and that my friend is idolatry...which as we learned before is a fruit of the flesh. So, I guess that means when you are pulling for team flesh you are just spinning yourself in one big 'ole circle.

What fruits are you picking? What side are you on? Are you on team spirit or team flesh? I'll tell you a little secret...in the end...when it is all said and done...you want to be on team spirit because trust me...team flesh doesn't stand a chance.

Who Are These Barnababes?

We are a group of young ladies who enjoy sharing the love of Jesus to those we know and meet. We are also dedicated to learning what the Lord has to teach us from His Word. We are a part of a church plant called The Creek Church and we are learning what it means to love people from the bleachers to the field.

Over the next few months we will be embarking on an adventure by studying the fruits of the spirit and the women in Scripture that lived them out....and even some that didn't. We can't wait to see what the Lord will do in and through us during this study!

Oh and you may be wondering...'what in the world is a 'Barnababe'? Well, have you ever heard of Barnabus? He was a man named Joses (Joseph) that the disciples named, Barnabus which means, 'son of encouragement.' Simply, we want to be known as encouragers to those we meet too and since we are girls we have taken on the name 'The Barnababes' in honor of good 'ole Barnabus.

So there you have it! A little something to let you know what the Barnababes are all about...girls who love God, love people and love to encourage those around us.