I just have to blog on this a bit.  I’m so excited about this new Bible study and I think it’s not the study that has me all thrilled, but just being back in God’s Word on a more regular basis.  I’m just bad to slip and slide when I’m out of a study. 

 I’m leading Mary Kassian’s  Knowing God by Name: A Personal Encounter and it Rocks! 

 It’s a seven week study that covers five names of God each week.  We start with the names of Deity - Yahweh, Adonai, and on. 

 When I was finally able to write, I grabbed my pencil (the cute pink one), my hi-lighter, some post-its and about four different versions of  the Bible and got to work. 

 I loved it from the first verse:

“God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said,  “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” Exodus 3:13-14. 

 That’s so powerful. He is I AM!  Nothing else needed.  I AM WHO I AM.  Don’t need any explanations because he is all and more.  Don’t need anything beyond I AM.  It’s so beautiful and powerful it just takes my breath away.  I AM. 

And what is amazing is that we serve I AM. That is who we, as followers of Jesus Christ, serve. 

 And that is just the first verse.  There is so much just in the first pages and while the author is talented and well-versed in knowledge, it’s just so apparent that God has His hands all over this study and it’s just cram-packed full of God’s Words - and there is the power to move people and change lives. 

 After that first verse, I just went to town reading, scribbling notes in the book, highlighting like a mad woman, tagging and flagging sections and I loved every moment of it. 

 I just stepped into God’s Holy Word and had me a big ol’ party!  I went to this verse and it just resonated in my spirit and I’m still reading it and loving it.

 ”For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.”

Isaiah 57:15 ESV  (emphasis is mine)

 He inhabits eternity.  Now, just let that soak in for a minute.  He inhabits eternity.  Now hold that thought and let me share another verse with you.

 ”Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, 

Even from the everlasting to the everlasting, You are God.” Ps 90:2 (again, emphasis is mine).

Now doesn’t that just rock your socks!  Our dwelling place!  And Everlasting to Everlasting.  I just love that.   But hold on, I have one more for you.

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.  Rev. 1:8

 He is!  He is the Holy, Mighty, Majestic, Magnificent, Powerful, Incredible GOD.  He is I AM.  He is all that I can write and so much more than I can even begin to imagine,  He is all that I can think and so much more than I can even dream.  He is all that I can speak and so much more than I can even begin to understand. 

He is I AM. 

 I’m just awestruck that this amazing Lord God allows me, as completely messed up and faulty as I am, to lead this study of who He is.  I’m humbled and amazed.  I ask for your prayers and I encourage you to just jump on in His word and soak it up.  Have a blast and enjoy just who He is.  He loves us and He loves us so much that He has made a way for us to know (within our limited abilities) Him.  Through the power of His Holy Spirit we can catch a glimpse of the great I AM. 

 Loving this day!

 Have a great Today! 

Those yearbook pictures…. they can truly haunt you.  There was a time (like when I was in high school, college and a really young adult) when the only people who saw your high school yearbook were the people you were in high school with. 

No longer the case.  

Now, when you least expect it your picture can pop up on someone else’s MySpace page.  This probably goes for Facebook, too, but I don’t have one of those and I’m not getting one.  I’m dealing with enough guilt over never updating my MySpace and never posting any Twitter stuff.  (More on twitter later).

Recently, I had someone from my past pop up on my MySpace with a “hey, do you remember me?” message.  Well, I didn’t and I felt bad.  So, I grabbed the trusty yearbooks (I went to two different high schools, so there’s more to check) and searched the pages.  No luck.  No one person with the same first name went to either school. 

I responded with a ‘I just can’t place you’ message — because, well, I just couldn’t.  She gave me some hints — no luck. Oh well. It was nice to hear from her and maybe one day I’d remember her.

A few weeks later I get this email “hey, thought you’d like to see some old pictures of you.’  I go to her page and there I am — in all my about 14 year old glory!  Wow — what a blast from the past.  And then I put it all together.  We grew up in the same neighborhood.  We went to the same grammar school and she moved before we started high school.  That’s why she wasn’t in the yearbook - mystery solved.  But now, I have these pictures of me floating out there on Myspace - but then I thought, who cares what I looked like at 14.

Fast forward a few months and I’m reading 2nd Cup of Coffee Blog because she’s funny and makes me laugh.  She has all this cute yearbook pictures from Yearbook Yourself — and I wanted to do this too.  I just uploaded a picture of me and the rest is history.  so this post is born.

First there’s the real me ….

No — that’s not a cigarette in my mouth — it’s a tootsie pop

I’m the one in the stylin’ plaid coat!  Geez, look at how thin I was! And just who did we think we were? The Holman Jr High Mafia?  That’s Margaret, Me, Lisa, and Susan. 

Now moving on to the yearbook yourself images…… this is just too much fun.

  Missed the era — love the hair style! (okay, I so, I didn’t really miss it, but I was just a little person in the 1960s) 

I always wanted That Girl hair - -so cool and flippy-like.

Look — this is my 1975 hair style! Just before my Farrah Fawcett days…

What in the world were we thinking?  Pyramids on our head?  Hey, don’t knock it — we 80s chicks thought this was the coolest.

My personal favorite — Big Hair with some serious-business curled bangs.  Honey, this hair didn’t move, ever. (Bring Back Big Hair!) We had hair products that were really just spray glue with some smelly good stuff in it — take your spray glue and your comb and you tease your hair until it was high and proud!

That was such a blast.  When I look at the pictures of the Mary of yesterday, I just wish I could talk to her for just a minute….. now, let’s analyze that for a sec.  Everyone says that, but seriously, would she listen?  Of course not.  She never does.  People did try to tell us — remember all that stuff we heard.

These are the best years of your life (I beg to differ, high school is all about belonging, 35 and beyond — much better years since I no longer have to wear the jeans everyone else is wearing nor do I have to have the same hairstyle, eye makeup and whatever else was required — I think for my era and area it was these strange charm necklace things.  I didn’t have one. I’m still reeling from the emotional impact.)

The years will just fly by (said to a girl who’s struggling to find her independence or just get her drivers’ license.  Yes, years fly by but that doesn’t happen until you finally get your own children in high school)).

Enjoy being young, you have plenty of time to be a grown up — now, I’m just agreeing with that one!

Looking forward — I hope that I’ll take some of the lessons that the girl in the picture has learned over the past many years and apply it to my life. 

My prayer is that I no longer worry about what people think or say about me — I can’t control either.

My prayer is that I’ll embrace life just like that 14 year old girl did - wide eyed and with enthusiasm. 

I pray that in all I do, I’ll glorify the Lord  and live the life He’s led me to live — with or without Big Hair (but Lord, I’d really like to do it with the Big Hair).  

Many of you have popped in from the Internet Cafe — welcome. For you regular readers, all seven of you, I’m a contributor writer with the Christian Women Online’s Internet Cafe– pop over there today and take a look. It’s a wonderful community and I’m honored to be among this talented group.