Encouragement For Women

     From the kitchen my ears over heard a voice from an episode of Top Shot Season Two (my husband & boys love this show):  "...What can really ruin a marksman is overconfidence." Which spun my cogs to thinking, "what can really ruin a _______ is under-confidence (which by the way is not an actual word), so what I should be thinking is "lack of confidence".  The word over- as a prefix to a word carries the meanings; so as to exceed or surpass, excessive, to an excessive degree, says Merriam-Webster.  Below or short of some quantity, level or limit is their definition for the word under when used in combinations with words such as underachieve.       Welcome to my own personal struggle.  Not being overconfident.  Proud, yes.  But not in that "be true to your school" kind of proud, the ugly pride kind.  I somehow lack a healthy quota of confidence.  I know that I am important, have self worth...

We are going through Philippians for my mid-week ladies Bible study and it has been so eye opening and instructive for me. I know many verses from Philippians, but through this study I have been placing them all together in context and have been learning so much more from them. Philippians 3 is a rich chapter, with many deep verses, but I have realized that I so often overlook one important verse that should be foundational for our lives. In Philippians 3:15 Paul exhorts his listeners “Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you.” OK, what mind? Well, let’s go back to the prior verses and see. Philippians 3:12-14, “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forwa...