Introducing the three kids who made me a mom:

Arabella,Sam, and Sharon, my 6, 7 and 5 year old.  🙂

I’ve spent many hours with Jesus trying to figure this mothering gig out.  My conclusion:  I’m never going to figure it out, but I am going to keep going to his Word to look for the answers!

I am convinced that nothing has had more sanctifying power in my life than parenting. You learn what it means to die to yourself those first few nights with a newborn.

but…

I LOVE being a mom!  Sometimes my kids have to tell me to calm down because I get too carried away with crazy fun of dance parties in our living room.

So I am excited to walk through this week of refocusing on parenting with you.  We will be:

Remembering the Gifts that they are

Refocusing on praying for them

Refocusing in on their God -given gifts

Refocusing on teaching them God’s Word

Refocusing on spending time with them

So print out the study guide and check in here Monday!  2016 is going to be the best year in your mothering yet!

The world has done well at taking physical intimacy away from a married man and woman and putting it on every channel of our televisions.  But the church has a hard time talking about it.  I get it.  It is hard to talk about something God created to be so good and pure and right inside of marriage with sacredness when we are all sinful people.

But you know what?  God can handle it.  He wants you to go to him, in prayer and in his Word  and rediscover, see with new beauty what he created physical intimacy in marriage to be.

So I hope and pray that if you are doing this bible study with us (over 300 ladies on our Facebook group!) that you do not skimp over this day of study.  That you do not flip through and passively throw up a quick prayer about your married sex life.  Yes I typed the three letter word. It is a good word if you are using it in the way God intended.

I challenge you to really do what I suggested in the study guide.

Write out Song of Solomon 4:9 and Draw out the Garden of Love.  Post your garden of love scene on your beside table, light a candle, and put the kids to bed!  Have a great time and check back in here tomorrow when the kids are awake driving you crazy.  I will have the #Refocused Week 3 –Parenting study guide posted by then.  Happy Friday!!!

 

FAR MORE THAN RUBIES

That is your worth as a a “virtuous and capable” wife. Your strength comes and capability comes from the Lord your God as you wake up everyday and choose to let the love of Jesus flow through you onto these precious containers on your blessing table, your husband and children.

The first exercise today was to “translate” verses 13-16 into ways you can help your husband in the year 2016.

13She finds wool and flax
and busily spins it.

She sees her man needs some new clothes and goes to Kohl’s to buy them.

14She is like a merchant’s ship,
bringing her food from afar.

She goes to the grocery store and buys the food to prepare home cooked meals.  She may drive 3o minutes away to get organic food from Harris Teeter or Trader Joes.  Or she may go to Aldi and Walmart to get good deals and stretch her dollar.

15She gets up before dawn to prepare breakfast for her household
and plan the day’s work for her servant girls.

She rises early to spend a few quiet moments with the Lord, writing out a to do list an asking Him to help her prioritize and get done what needs to be done.  She doesn’t have servant girls, BUT she has a washer, dyer, dishwasher, indoor stove, and microwave to help her.

16She goes to inspect a field and buys it;
with her earnings she plants a vineyard.

She puts great thought into how she spends her money and thinks about how she can invest not only her money, but her time and skills for earthly and eternal profit.

These are just a few thoughts about how “Provie 31” can be translated into a real woman in 2016.

To further engage with the passage, you were asked to draw yourself as this virtuous woman, complete with all the gifts and talents you use to serve your family everyday.  Here is my very quick sketch, depicting  the most important tasks on my tables:

And last, but not least, I asked your to consider verse 12, to study it in different translations, and write out the one that spoke the most to you.  Here is mine:

 

I pray this day of studying the Proverbs 31 woman has encouraged you.  Let’s stop striving and walk with Jesus to love and serve our families!  Check back tomorrow for a very intense topic!!!

Today our application for the study includes 3 actions:

1. Praying for our husbands to love us with Christ’s love.

2. #Refocus our hearts to Respect our husbands by admiring their good qualities.

3. Let respect come alive in action. You know your husband. Hear what’s important to him. What’s on his mind. What’s important to him should be important to you.

Today I was challenged to start making a list of things my man mentions that need to get done so I don’t forget. Seriously, I need lists in my life!

Pray for God to help you speak your man’s language of what respecting him looks like to him. He will help you! Praying for you all!

 

On Saturday afternoon, I was walking through an infirmary in Jamaica when a sweet soul in a bright orange dress laid in her bed smiling widely and waving at me.  I drew closer, shook her hand and introduced myself to her.  Beside her bed was a wheelchair and a small bedside table.  On her table, a bible was laid open to the book  of John.  I talked to her for a few minutes and then I waved some of my friends over to meet this happy spirit.  We circle around her bed as she shared passages of the bible from memory with us.  We were humbled by her joy and her faith.  Then she started handing out presents to us.

“I want to give you something,”  she said as she looked at me.  She grabbed a triple braided bracelet from her bedside table and tied it around my wrist.

She tied it so tightly I could hardly get it off to sleep that night.  The three pieces of thread, in native colors of the Jamaican flag, were weaved so strongly together, with no gaps so that it looked like one piece of continuous yarn with three colors.  Of course, I KNOW this is an illustration God has given me through this sweet angel of his for this verse:

 

For me, this bracelet represents God in the gold, me in the green, my husband, Nick in the black.  With the Lord holding us together, we will stay connected, strong and steady and without any gaps for others to enter in to this sacred covenant we entered into eleven years ago.  This verse and illustration is now used in wedding ceremonies.  My sister in law included it in hers.  And I can see why.

We can trust God with our marriages.

We can trust him and call out to him when we have anxiety and worry about the current state of our relationship.

We can trust him and call out to him to protect our bond and keep it strong when others around us are unraveling.

We can trust and call out to him when we are at the end of our own rope in our marriage.

When we don’t think we can hold it together anymore, we can trust and call out to him and  know HE CAN.

I don’t know about you, but I find so much freedom knowing God is able to hold this beautiful, but complicated thing called marriage together, making it strong, unified, and better with every twist and turn as long as we trust Him and follow his pattern for it.

The other passage, Philippians 2:1-11,  in the Day 2 study guide is my favorite, because it has been one of the most heart-altering passages in my wifehood.  Studying the attitude  and heart of how our Jesus lived  is powerful. Here is the verse I chose this time to write out:

Praying for you ladies and all the marriages represented in reading these words! Keep digging in and applying his Word to your lives.