thoughts and wrestling with Scripture

*wrote this over breakfast, ended up saying more than I planned on, ran out of time, & need to start school, so please excuse the mistakes*

This morning I rewrote a portion of my reading and it made for a stark reminder for me:
Revelations 3:7-13
He who is holy
He who is true
He who has the key of David
He who opens and no one will shut
He who shuts and no one will open
He says this:
I know your deeds

I found a neat Bible Study idea that I wanted to try out.  Are you familiar with the Cornell Note Taking Method?  If not, click on the link or google it - it is a neat way to take notes and study them afterward.  Well, recently I found out that a blogger (Arabah Joy) had introduced the Cornell Note Taking Bible Study Method and I knew that I wanted to give it a try.  So I chose Ephesians 1 and plopped down on the floor this morning, plucked up a pen, and set to work.  Ten minutes later I was wrestling with verse 4.  So many questions swirled - what does it mean to be chosen in Christ?  How can we be chosen and yet He draws us to Him?  He chose before the foundation of the world, I cannot wrap my mind around what that means.  So, I am struggling with this portion of Ephesians 1, but I do love the Cornell Method.  It is a super neat way to dig in to and meditate on portions.

I also started something new this morning with my prayer life - this idea is also based off of a post Arabah Joy did on making a prayer journal - do you follow her on twitter?  I do and man, oh man, do I find some awesome things there!  Anyhow, I modified it a bit to fit what I needed, I made a list from Sunday to Saturday in the front of my bullet journal.  I chose one person close to me for each day of the week, Sunday is my husband, Monday is my first born, Tuesday is my second born, Wednesday is my third born, etc; I also choose one leadership role to pray for each day of the week - Sunday is the President and his entire cabinet, Monday is our congress and senate, Tuesday is for our state governor and cabinet etc, and then each day I will pick on current event to pray over.  Today was a combination of Hurricane Harvey, Irma, and North Korea.  As soon as I say I will pray for someone I am going to assign them a day of the week so that I will no longer be humiliated to admit 'Oh I actually didn't remember to pray for____________.'  That is THE worst feeling, isn't it?  To say you are going to pray for someone who is going through something awful, only to go about your merry way and completely forget to shoulder their burden.

One last, slightly random, note.  We went to Barnes and Noble this weekend to pick up two books for school, one of those being A Long Walk To Water.  I read it to my kids and my husband yesterday.  From start to finish we sat in the living room as the world spun around us and lost ourselves in Salva's story.  It was one of the BEST books we have read.  Ever.  I highly, highly recommend this book.  Even if you do not homeschool, even if you do not have kids, even if you are a grandparent, or an aunt, or a high school senior, you HAVE to read this book.  This book is amazing.  Seriously.