My grandkids and I sing a cute little song, "Read your Bible, pray every day, and you'll grow, grow, grow. Granted, this is a very simplistic little jingle, yet it's full of an important truth. We need to spend time in God's Word daily in order to grow as Christians and have the spiritual stamina to persevere in our duties as Sandwich Generation senior home care givers and grandparents!
Some of my favorite Bible study ideas that work well with my busy Sandwich Generation schedule requiring a lot of flexibility include all of the Beth Moore workbooks. I personally consider them to be some of the best Bible studies available and they work great with my ever-changing calendar.
I first discovered them in a womens Bible study at my church. We would meet weekly to watch the Beth Moore video that went with our study. Then we'd use the workbooks to do our personal daily Bible studies at home. I learned a lot, grew a lot, and was encouraged a lot. After the study ended for the summer, I decided to buy a different one in the series to work on at home on my own and chose "Daniel: Lives of Integrity, Words of Prophecy
I was very pleased with this study as well. It did a great job or making me think, dig, and apply the truths I was learning. I could easily have done the study just from the workbook, but chose to use iTunes Podcasts to download the audio version of the Beth Moore study that goes hand in hand with it. There are four mp3 files per lesson for $3.99 per lesson and they are very interesting. You could get the video instead, but this is cheaper and I can listen to mp3 files on my iPod while driving my senior mom and grandkids all around.
Currently I'm working through a different one of the Beth Moore workbooks, "Jesus, the One & Only
I was especially blessed this week when Beth Moore made a great suggestion for those times when we are dealing with a personality conflict of some type, which could include a sick and cranky relative of any age, (something we in the Sandwich Generation may deal with quite frequently 
). She suggested that we should react to their grouchies with our prayers. Quoting from 1 Peter 3, Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, or [grouchy with grouchy,] but with blessing, (Sandwich Generation version), she recommended that we take the time to pick some verses, write them down (or send them to our iPhone), and then "Scripture pray" these verses for our loved one and ourselves. During a recent bug, I gave this a try, choosing all of 1 Peter 3:8-12 (NIV):
All of you, live in harmony with one another, be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. For, "Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech. He must turn from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil."
Isn't that great! Not only did I pray these verses through for my little grand-grouchies, I read them to all the grandkids and had them pray the verses with me. I saw such wonderful fruit, I decided we will work on memorizing that passage this spring and summer, along with their Awana verses. One grandkid already has it part-way memorized! Now that is some awesome fruit of the Spirit! And it's a big encouragement to me to see myself "growing" and watch as that growth has a definite impact on my grandkids' growth as well.
How about you? What are your favorite Bible study ideas and workbooks? We'd love to hear. And by the way, Family Christian is offering a great deal for us.
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