the council

Last Monday was our last council of friends for awhile.  The original concept was to gather a group of women that I knew were seekers of truth and also gracious, and to set aside some time to seek God's heart on some subject.  Before this, I had begun to feel that I was withdrawn and reserved, and the Lord seemed to be asking me to change--to be more open to trustworthy people, to make some heart-to-heart friends.  At the first meeting, the consensus was that feelings of guilt were over-whelming and crippling some of us.  So we pursued that subject for 7 weeks, with the desire to overcome the crippling effects of guilt.

We faced wrongs we had done,
and asked for our joy to be renewed.

We acknowledged that sometimes
we feel guilty
when we haven't done anything wrong,
just failed to meet
some arbitrary goal--
we overcame perfectionism.

We cried together. . .
every week. . .

and we counseled
and encouraged one another.

 We upheld each other in prayer
and meditated on a few passages of scripture.

We thought about guilt
and grace
and forgiveness
and healing
and joy.

And the end of seven weeks arrived,
and we were sad
to see the end,
but glad to have walked this path
together.

Maybe we will gather again,
and continue to heal
and feast
and become stronger
in grace.