by Marisa Gronholz

Blessed. Or, as it is literally translated in Psalm 1, “O how happy!” It is with this word that we began the Bethany Women’s Bible Study. And we certainly feel blessed. Today, over forty Bethany women came together to sing, laugh, pray, and discuss how the first lesson in Eugene Peterson’s study on Psalms: Prayers of the Heart had impacted them over this past week.

As I looked around the room I saw women who had been at Bethany for fifty years and women who had been at Bethany for two weeks. I saw a mother of a newborn and a grandmother of a teenager. I saw a single woman at the start of her career and woman enjoying the first years of retirement. Women from all walks of life, different circumstances, came together for one common purpose: to study God’s word in order to hear his voice and respond to him in prayer.

As I heard each woman share her insights on the lesson, each one providing something new and different, I saw the scripture for the living, breathing thing that it is and I felt…you guessed it…blessed.

While the Bible often prepares us for blessedness in the Beatitudes, Psalms, and Proverbs, I will admit that my personal “O how happy” feelings came as a surprise.

When a few of us who had been meeting together wondered if there might be a few women out there who would like to be in a bible study, we had no idea that God had been preparing the hearts of over forty women, reminding us that God is working long before we ever show up on the scene.

And for that we feel truly blessed!