Sacred Friendships

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Sacred Friendships Listening to the Voices of
Women Soul Care-Givers and Spiritual Directors
Hebrews 121-3 So Great a Cloud of Witnesses
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Addressing the Elephant in the Room
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Co-Authors
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Co-Editors
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A Voice for the Voiceless
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Searching for Buried Treasure The Forgotten Arts
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A Bunch of Dead White Guys!
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A Cloud of Female Witnesses!
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Hebrews 121-3Cloud of Witnesses
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a
great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off
everything that hinders us and the sin that so
easily entangles us, and let us run with
perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us
fix our eyes on Jesus the author and perfecter of
our faith, who for the joy set before him endured
the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at
the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him
who endured such opposition from sinful men, so
that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
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Following the Ancient Paths
Helping Hurting and Hardened People Can Feel Like
a Maze!
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Ever Feel a Little Lost?
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Ever Feel a Little Lost?
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Some Signs Are More Helpful Than Others
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Some Signs Are More Helpful Than Others
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Some Sign Are More Helpful Than Others
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Some Signs Are More Helpful Than Others
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Some Sign Are More Helpful Than Others
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Need Some Directions?
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Need Some Directions?
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Following the Ancient Paths
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Ask for the Ancient Paths

• Ask for the ancient paths,
• ask where the good way is,
• and walk in it, and you will find
• rest for your souls
• (Jeremiah 616).

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Finding Buried Treasure Changeless Truth for
Changing Times
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Our Treasure Map Sustaining, Healing,
Reconciling, and Guiding

• Sustaining Hurt
• Healing Hope
• Reconciling
• Horrible/Wonderful
• Guiding Mature

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Susanna Wesleys Treasure Map Sustaining,
Healing, Reconciling, and Guiding
We are to be instructed, because we are ignorant
guiding and healed, because we are sick
healing and disciplined, because so apt to
wander and go astray reconciling and succored
and supported, because we are so often tempted
sustaining (Susanna Wesley).
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Our Historical Treasure Map Sustaining,
Healing, Reconciling, and Guiding

• Sustaining Its Normal to Hurt
• Healing Its Possible to Hope
• Reconciling Its Horrible to Sin, but
• Wonderful to Be Forgiven
• Guiding Its Supernatural to Mature

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Whet Your Appetite
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Sustaining Modeled by Perpetua
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Sustaining Modeled by Perpetua

• Written expressly for Gods honor and humans
  encouragement.
• I was terrified because never before had I
  experienced such darkness.
• I was very upset because of my fathers
  condition. I tried to comfort him saying,
  Whatever God wants at this tribunal will happen,
  for remember that our power comes not from
  ourselves but from God.

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Sustaining Modeled by Perpetua

• My fathers injury hurt me as much as if I
  myself had been beaten. And I grieved because of
  his pathetic old age.
• I consoled my brother and asked that they care
  for my son. I suffered intensely because I sensed
  their agony on my account.
• Incredibly, Perpetuas greatest pain was her
  ache for others who hurt for her!

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Healing Shared by Perpetua and Felicitas

• Her friends were equally sad at the thought of
  abandoning such a good friend to travel alone on
  the same road to hope.
• They were exhorting the people, warning them to
  remember the judgment of God.

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Healing Shared by Perpetua and Felicitas

• The day of their victory dawned, and with
  joyful countenances they marched from the prison
  arena as though on their way to heaven. If there
  was any trembling, it was from joy, not fear.
• Perpetua followed with a quick step as a true
  spouse of Christ, the darling of God, her
  brightly flashing eyes quelling the gaze of the
  crowd.

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Healing Shared by Perpetua and Felicitas

• But that noble woman stubbornly resisted even
  to the end.
• Perpetua was singing victory Psalms as if
  already crushing the head of the Egyptian.

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Reconciling Practiced by Nonna
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Reconciling Practiced by Nonna

• She fell before God night and day, entreating
  for the salvation of her head with fasting and
  tears, and devoting herself to her husband, and
  influencing him in many ways by means of
  reproaches, admonitions, attentions,
  estrangements, and above all by her own character
  with its fervor for piety, by which the soul is
  prevailed upon and softened, and willingly
  submits to virtuous pressure (Gregory Nazianzus
  of his mothers reconciling of his Father).

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Reconciling Practiced by Nonna

• But she was given to God to my father not only,
  as is less wonderful, as his assistant, but even
  his leader, drawing him on by her influence in
  deed and word to the highest excellence . . . In
  regard to piety even offering herself as his
  teacher.

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Reconciling Practiced by Nonna

• This good shepherd was the result of his wifes
  prayers and guidance, and it was from her that he
  learned his ideal of a good shepherds life.

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Reconciling Practiced by Nonna

• It was on her part a great undertaking to
  promise me to God before my birth, with no fear
  of the future, and to dedicate me immediately
  after I was born.

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Reconciling Practiced by Nonna

• None was as confident of things present as she
  of things hoped for, from her experience of the
  generosity of God.

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Guiding Passed on by Macrina the Elder

• What is pertinent here is that the family
  recognized the women to be the guides directing
  them all to their spiritual ends.
• She formed and molded me, still a child, to the
  doctrines of piety (Basil of his grandmother,
  Macrina the Elder).

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Guiding Passed on by Emmelia

• When she rose from bed or engaged in household
  duties, or rested, or partook of food, or retired
  from the table, when she went to bed or rose in
  the night for prayer, the Psalter was her
  constant companion and these were the subject of
  her training of her daughter (Gregory of Nyssa
  concerning Emmelias mentoring of her daughter
  Macrina the Younger).

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Guiding Passed on by Macrina the Younger

• She took him soon after birth and reared him
  herself and educated him on a lofty system of
  training, practicing him from infancy in his holy
  studies and became all things to the ladfather,
  teacher, tutor, mother, giver of all good advice
  (Gregory of Nyssa concerning Macrina the
  Youngers discipleship of her younger brother
  Peter).

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Learning together from Our Great Cloud of Female
Witnesses
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Sacred Friendships Listening to the Voices of
Women Soul Care-Givers and Spiritual Directors
Hebrews 121-3 So Great a Cloud of Witnesses