If possible, light a candle to remind yourselves that you are in the presence of God together. (Group leaders, if possible, bring flowers for a visual centerpiece.) Begin with a few minutes of silence for contemplative prayer.
Read Psalm 40:1-10. What do you notice about the way David tells his story?
What are some of the physical objects or markers that are meaningful to you in your life with God right now? If you brought an item with you, share a story about its significance.
Discuss ways you are practicing beholding God. Share stories of God’s “Here I am.” How do these stories encourage you in hope?
Spend time praying for the ones you love and long for, the ones who haven’t yet said yes to the love of God in Christ. Pray for one another to have courage and opportunities to share a story about God’s faithfulness with someone who needs to hear.
WEEK 7
Part Four: Love Descends
This week you’ll read chapter eleven in part four. Many of the reflection questions and disciplines this week are focused on loving others. Take time this week to be diligent in love.
Prayerful preparation: Light a candle to remind yourself that Emmanuel is with you. Practice releasing and receiving with your hands open. With your palms down, release your burdens, anxiety, sorrows, and sin to God. With your palms up, receive God’s good and gracious gifts to you.
Reflection
Read Philippians 2:1-11. In what ways does Jesus descend? What would it mean to have the same mind and love as Christ? What are some practical ways to model self-giving, humble love?
Think about a time in your life when God seemed hidden or when you were overwhelmed with sorrow or stress. Who are some of the people who came alongside you? Spend time thanking God for gifts of presence in the midst of pain. Are there any people you have the opportunity to thank? Write a note, send an email, make a phone call, schedule a visit.
Read Luke 2:8-14 slowly and prayerfully, several times, out loud. Using words, phrases, or images from the text, pray for others to hear and believe the good news.
If you haven’t yet made it a habit, practice standing in front of a mirror and declaring God’s love for you. When you see others face to face this week, practice offering a prayer for them, that they would know God’s love in tangible ways. Is there anyone you resist praying for? Offer your resistance to God.
Generosity
Practice giving gifts to others this week. Prayerfully consider what would be a meaningful expression of love and offer it wholeheartedly.
Serving
In what ways can you serve others this week? Explore serving strangers as well as those you know. If you are studying in a group, find an opportunity to serve together.
Intercessory Prayer
Practice praying for those for whom you find it difficult to pray. Ask the Lord to give you his heart, his perspective on the one you pray for. Ask the Spirit to pray through you.
Gratitude
Practice rehearsing God’s faithfulness to you. Begin by naming the more obvious gifts, then offer thanks for the ways God cares for you in less noticeable ways. Find ways to express your gratitude to others.
Week Seven: Group Discussion Questions
If possible this week, serve together. Or discuss potential opportunities to serve and schedule a time to do it. If you are not serving together this week, use your group time to talk about the ways you were able to express gratitude, practice generosity, or pray for others this week. Read Philippians 2:1-11 and discuss what it means for love to descend.
WEEK 8
Part Four: Love Descends
This week you’ll read chapter twelve in part four. Each day, select a reflection question to ponder. No new disciplines are given for this week. Practice ones that are life-giving and soul-enlarging for you. If you have not finished writing your story (see week 6), work on completing it.
Prayerful preparation: If possible, light a candle to remind yourself that you are in the presence of God. Quiet yourself with contemplative prayer or breath prayer.
Reflection
How can remembering God’s faithfulness in the past help you trust God with the future? What stories do you need to remember? In what ways do you need to trust God as you step forward?
Charissa names several forms of “socially acceptable” idolatry. How have you sought to derive your significance and security apart from God? In what ways are you being invited to give up control?
Read Mark 5:21-43. Using your imagination, enter the story and pretend to be Jairus. What do you feel, think, experience as the story unfolds? What does “only believe” mean to you?
Emmanuel, the Lord, is with you. Even then, even now, even here. Where do you glimpse the presence of Emmanuel in the past, in the present, in the midst of trial?
What does it mean to sing defiant exclamation points of hope? Where is God inviting you to put commas in your story? Finish writing your “two steps forward” narrative.
Week Eight: Group Discussion Questions
If possible, light a candle to remind yourselves that you are in the presence of God together.
This is a day to share your own “two steps forward” narratives. Celebrate and give God thanks for what he has done as you’ve walked together. Conclude your time by offering a benediction to one another in a circle: “Greetings, [name], favored one! The Lord is with you. Do not be afraid.”
Sing a verse from a hymn or chorus that has joyful exclamations about who Christ is and what he has done.
Praise for
Two Steps Forward
“With her characteristic wisdom and grace, Sharon Garlough Brown gives voice to hope in the stories of Hannah, Charissa, Maya and Meg. Their spiritual journeys during Advent are marked by darkness, waiting and even heartbreak. Yet in Brown’s honest and tender narrative, their friendship with each other and their openness to God’s work in their lives continues to draw them toward light and new life, bearing witness to light in the darkness. To read this book is to learn to hope. In the lives of these four women, Brown reveals a God who calls us beloved even through our tears, who faithfully keeps his promises and who sends a Savior to bring joy to the world. Two Steps Forward offers spiritual insights of the rarest beauty about both the pain and the peace at the ‘growing edges’ in our life with God. Like Sensible Shoes, this book is a gift and blessing to all who long for Emmanuel.”
Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung, Calvin College, author of Glittering Vices
“Have you ever wondered what it would be like to meet with a spiritual director to talk about your spiritual journey? Sharon Brown does a masterful job of giving the reader a glimpse of what that process is like through the stories of four different women looking for peace and hope. For me, these women have become sacred companions on my own journey. I learned and pondered things with them like: What are you afraid of? Where do you want control? What agitates you? Learn to linger with what provokes you. What is God stirring in your soul? It is as though you enter into spiritual direction yourself, and it’s life transforming! My own heart has been enlarged for more of Jesus as a result of Two Steps Forward!”
Marilyn Hontz, speaker, author of Listening for God and Shame Lifter
“I couldn’t wait to dive again into the lives of the four friends I got to know in Sensible Shoes. I was not disappointed as I laughed, cried and thanked God for the sisters in my own life walking the journey with me.”
Anita Lustrea, executive producer/host, Midday Connection, author, speaker, spiritual director
“Two Steps Forward is a wonderful continuation of Sensible Shoes as Hannah, Charissa, Mara and Meg share life with their spiritual director and each other. I became totally engaged in the thoughts, actions and process of the gals struggling in their own formation. Sharon shows that the narrow road does lead to life, or to put it differently, God does his deepest work in the darkest night. Read, weep and celebrate with the four women of Kingsbury who want to be more like Christ.”
R
achael Crabb, coauthor of Listen In
“Once again, Sharon Brown has provided an inspirational story that allows readers to shadow four women as they continue their spiritual journey. Each facing specific challenges, the friends learn that God is with us, even now, even here, in the midst of our own mess. With a powerful companion guide for prayer and conversation, this book is ideal for anyone dealing with loss, abuse, fear, anxiety or insecurities. It reminds us all, with a gentle touch, that we are born in the image of God and we are worthy of being loved.”
Julie Cantrell, New York Times and USA Today–bestselling author of Into the Free and The Feathered Bone
About the Author
Sharon Garlough Brown holds an MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary and is a pastor, spiritual director and retreat leader. Her book Sensible Shoes was named one of television personality Kathie Lee Gifford’s “favorite things” in March 2013. She and her husband, Jack, copastor Redeemer Covenant Church in Caledonia, Michigan.
The Sensible Shoes Series
Sensible Shoes
978-0-8308-6453-9
Two Steps Forward
978-0-8308-9871-8
Barefoot
Available Winter 2017
978-0-8308-9883-1
For more information, visit ivpress.com/sensibleshoesseries.
Some voices challenge us. Others support or encourage us. Voices can move us to change our minds, draw close to God, discover a new spiritual gift. The voices of others are shaping who we are.
The voices behind IVP Crescendo join together to draw us into God’s story. We’ll discover God’s work around the globe even as we learn to love the people around the corner. We’ll have opportunity to heal our places of pain. We’ll discover new ways to love our families. We’ll hear God’s voice speaking into our lives as we discover new places of influence.
IVP Crescendo invites you to join in the rising chorus
to listen to the voices of others
to hear the voice of God
and to grow your own voice in
COURAGE. CONFIDENCE. CALLING.
* * *
www.ivpress.com/crescendo
www.ivpress.com/crescendo-social
InterVarsity Press
P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426
ivpress.com
[email protected]
©2015 by Sharon Garlough Brown
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from
InterVarsity Press.
InterVarsity Press® is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA®, a movement of students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, visit intervarsity.org.
Quotations from 2 Kings, Jonah and Psalm 40; 46:1-5 are from the New International Version; Luke 1:78-79 and John 1:9-14 are from The Message; all other Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. People, places, events and situations are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to events, locales or actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover design: Cindy Kiple
Images: luggage: © monticelllo/iStockphoto
four girls: © annie-claude/iStockphoto
ISBN 978-0-8308-9871-8 (digital)
ISBN 978-0-8308-4318-3 (print)
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brown, Sharon Garlough, author.
Two steps forward : a story of persevering in hope / Sharon Garlough Brown.
1 online resource.
Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.
ISBN 978-0-8308-9871-8 (eBook)—ISBN 978-0-8308-4318-3 (print : alk. paper)
1. Christian women—Fiction. 2. Spiritual retreats—Fiction. 3. Christian fiction. I. Title.
PS3602.R722867
813’.6—dc23
2015028786
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