Moments: Mother to Daughter, Friend to Friend—Together in Scripture at the Table of God’s Presence

By Danielle Opitz

Life is full of moments—how do you fill them? It is all too easy to find our time filled with the day-to-day activities of life, but how often are we able to be still with our thoughts and carve out opportunities for the most important moments we have—our moments with God?

Moments: Mother to Daughter, Friend to Friend—Together in Scripture at the Table of God’s Presence invites mothers, daughters, and friends to spend intentional moments of their lives sharing time in scripture with an open heart and Bible. Author Danielle Opitz gives encouraging, insightful messages with each intimate study, providing a relevant resource for anyone wanting to grow in a relationship with God and better understand His Word. She offers the STILL scripture study method— Search, Takeaway, Inquire, Listen and Live—to guide women of all ages in taking these first steps into the meaningful experience of Bible study.

“Be still, and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10

Being present with God’s living Word can offer us enormous and rich insights— so grab your Bible and pull up a chair to the table. Invite a friend, mother, or daughter to join you. The conversation may get personal at times, but you will experience a real and genuine love as you come to know yourself, your loved ones and God in the ways that matter most.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Dec 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781973646235

Danielle Opitz

Danielle Opitz is a wife, mother, teacher, and Bible study leader in the western mountains of Wyoming that she calls home. With a quick smile and a ready laugh, Danielle is not afraid to be real in her teaching and the personal stories she shares. Through her own experience with Bible study and her background in education, Danielle continues to encourage women of all ages to listen to the voice of God as they pause to spend quiet moments in the pages of His Word.

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Copyright © 2018 Danielle Opitz.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

NIV: Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

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ISBN: 978-1-9736-4624-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-4625-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-4623-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018913869

WestBow Press rev. date:  12/12/2018

To

Kaelle, Hanne, Madison, Makayla, Naomi, Maya, Courtney, Cheyla, and Jessy.

The next generation of women who inspire me.

This is for you.

Table of Contents

Begin

How It All Started

Together

At the Table

Still

Trust

Peace in the Storm

Blind

Straight Paths

Love

Living Love

Serving in Love

You Are the Pearl

Treasured

Pray

In the Quiet

Prayers that Intercede

Solitary Places

In Earnest

Doing Battle

Renew

Spiritual Spring Cleaning

Time for a Drenching

To Be a Butterfly

Speak Joy

New in the Spirit

Connect

The Mission of Family

Mirror Image

In Us and Through Us

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Begin

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How It All Started

It really all began with a cobalt-blue KitchenAid mixer. Dustin and I were newly married, and a good friend of ours had not been able to attend our wedding but had sent a high-powered gadget instead. This mixer had all the extra parts and promised to be powerful enough to make bread, rolls, and even pizza dough. I looked forward with anticipation to give the new KitchenAid a whirl. However, I never did. Not once during that entire first year of marriage did I mix a single batch of dough. Ever.

Instead, I decorated our small apartment kitchen with blue and yellow fabric. I made curtains to match the blue of the mixer. I bought dishtowels and potholders in the same cobalt blue, but never once did I add the necessary ingredients in the mixing bowl to create dough. Something about the size and fine print of the owner’s manual intimidated me in huge ways. I would begin to read the instructions and get lost in the second or third paragraph, and each time I would quietly put it away and think that the KitchenAid instructions required someone smarter and more talented than I to figure it out. I reminded myself that I had never been tech-savvy, and this must be a confirmation that I lacked the technical skill for kitchen appliances, as well.

And then one winter day, after more than a year of marriage, I stared at my blue mixer and decided I was tired of dusting it. I was tired of buying blue decor, and I was officially over decorating around a mixer that I had yet to use. In one final attempt, I gave the owner’s manual a last read.

This time, I did it differently. I looked at the steps of the manual and broke down the bread-making process. I took out a pen and notebook, circled and highlighted, and made some side notes in the margins. I rewrote the process in simpler steps in my notebook. I realized that if I just worked at taking one simple step at a time, I would be able to understand the mixing process better—and sure enough, I experienced my first successful attempt at making a beautiful, fresh loaf of bread.

And then I was hooked. Over the next many years, I wore out several gears on the mixer that Dustin regularly repaired. I went on to make hundreds of loaves of bread with that one beautiful blue mixer, which remained in a place of honor in my kitchen.

When I was a teenager, I approached Bible reading in much the same way I viewed my mixer as a newlywed. I remember many times in my teen and young adult years, wanting to understand the Bible and to study it for myself, but I felt confused, unsure where to start, and overwhelmed with trying to find a process of studying scripture. The Bible felt intimidating, and I assumed that it was something for others to understand and benefit from, but not me. Maybe later, when I was older and more seasoned in years, but not for my youth.

I continued to have