“This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife and the two are united into ONE.”  Genesis 2:24

 

ONENESS

Being united and staying united as ONE in marriage does not happen passively.  This world pulls us in a million directions, but God’s Word pulls you into a progressively closer  relationship with Him, and into a progressively closer relationship with your husband.

Today in our study guides, we were asked to pray and illustrate the “road to ONENESS” with our husbands this year.  Mine is below.  It is something the Lord has been showing me as we have woken up in beautiful Jamaica the past few days, enjoying our coffee on this patio:

After launching this bible study, I’ve had to wrestle with my morning priorities.  Down there in paradise it was no different.  Actually, it was different because the internet was very, very, slow.  I felt this pressure closing in to post everyday about the study and yet have time with Jesus first AND a special routine with my husband that creates ONENESS:

An undistracted cup of coffee with him in the morning.

UNDISTRACTED= FOCUSED=ONENESS

So here is the road to ONENESS I illustrated in my study guide:

A cup of coffee represents focused time together. Sitting down and leaving the computer and phone behind to converse with the most important person on this earth to me, my husband.

This is my road to oneness. Yours may look different, especially if you don’t drink coffee. But one thing will be the same:

A mindset and heartset of making your husband priority of all your relationships on this earth. 

Our relationship with Jesus is in a league of its own. Way above all our earthly ones!!!

As we walk with Jesus, he will help us leave what needs to be left behind and will walk us down this road to greater oneness in our marriages.

I’d love to see these illustrations and Write It Outs! Praying for all of you as we walk down this beautiful road to greater Oneness!

 

I’ve heard a picture is worth a thousand words, so here’s a short novel in pixels:

Long ago He planned for me to be in Jamaica this week, helping build a house for this young lady:

 

    


And so to be in the moment, in these plans He had for me these few days, I don’t have many words to type here.

 
I wrote down my dreams & goals for this year in my study guide, but I’m just soaking in the present few days with these beautiful people.

**I’ve uploaded the Week 2- MARRIAGE study guide! We start discussing it here and in the FB group so please print it out ASAP! You don’t want to miss it!!!

Catch up this weekend if you are behind. 😊

Please share your God given dreams & goals for the year! Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, our goal & prize!

 

Today we focus in on Psalm 139:14. It is powerful to remember that God made each of us “fearfully and wonderfully.” 

Does your soul really know this truth very well?  

Take time today to be still & know the unique characteristics Your Maker’s hand designed you with. Write them down. Own them confidently. They are not by mistake. Even your weaknesses were planned by him to keep you closely dependent on his grace, and for His power to be displayed through them.

You are a vessel for God’s love to be poured through this beautiful creation that you are. For the sake of #Refocus draw your “blessing table”- which is your home base mission field. My kids had fun coloring their little teacups afterwards & we talked about how they are all uniquely created fearfully & wonderfully by God. Get your kids involved in this one, they will love it. We had to do ours in the car while we waited for our Chinese food.  I praise God because He created the perfect time to include them, I had put my phone away & prayed to focus in on my little blessing table. We had some sweet moments.
 Please show me some pics of how they turn out! Praying for you ladies! You are beautiful vessels of His love.

You were MADE for whatever plans He has for you this year!

 

 

 

In the video, I talk about how I like to use The  Message paraphrase to dig deeper into the Word.  This evening, after I made the video, I was thinking on the verse and the one before it while I made my family dinner and the Lord gave me the best insight.  I asked in the video for everyone to think about how God is transforming you from the inside out, changing the way you think.

Here’s how He’s transforming me:

He’s helping me turn my everyday, mundane tasks of serving my family into offerings, acts of worship, while I thank him.

Like tonight, I was thinking of Romans 12:1-2 (the whole chapter is great by the way) while I made my family grilled chicken salads for dinner.

I mean, let’s keep it real, cooking, serving, cleaning is hard work.  It is an everyday life task that we can easily leave God out of. But God wants to be all up in it ya’ll.  Listen to Romans 12:1 MSG:

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. ” 

  

Do you know what I really LOVE?  That the first thing mentioned is SLEEPING.  Seriously, God wants us to get enough rest as an offering to him.  EATING- God wants us to eat and serve our family healthy food as an  offering to him.  Everything we do, it is an offering, an act of worship as we FOCUS in on this truth, that we are fulfilling God’s perfect, good, pleasing, will for our life at the moment when we are doing it FOR THE LORD.

More Romans 12:1-2 MSG:

“Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”

So I asked God to change the way I think about the things that are mundane, like cooking a healthy meal for my family, and he did.  And He will continue to help us all do this if we ask him.  Jesus is an everyday life God who loves to be welcomed into all that we do, not matter how small.  So, change those dirty diapers, clean that house, go to that job, and let God transform you from the inside out as you let him change the way you think.

I want to hear how God is transforming you today!  I’d love to see your “Write it Outs!” Praying for you, sweet Refocusing sisters!!!

 

 

Happy NEW  Year!!!  I am amazed, shocked, and a bit overwhelmed to be honest at the interest and popularity of this bible study.  It just leaves me awe struck of Jesus blows me away with his unpredictable plans time after time.  Oh, how I love this about Him!  And this is so perfect for this passage today.  

Yesterday (LAST YEAR) 🙂  we focused on #REMEMBERING what God had done in our lives in 2015.

Today (THIS YEAR) we continue on in Isaiah 43:18 , starting with the words:

“FORGET all that”,  “REMEMBER NOT the former things.”  

Think about those miraculous things God has done in your life, not just last year, but the past.  Think of the most momumental experience   in your spiritual life.  That experience that still brings chill bumps to your arms and the back of your neck.    For me, it was in 2014, when our family was adopting our daughter from Uganda, a small beautiful country in East Africa.  Everything about her adoption was a miracle.  It brings tears to my eyes now thinking of every mountain God moved, time after time, to bring her home to America, to have a family, a home.  But God tells Israel:

“But forget all that–it is nothing compared to what I am going to do.”

NOTHING.

WOW.

Again we are reminded how BIG our God is.

Ya’ll this makes me excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But wait, he goes further:

“For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? “

Something NEW.

“I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.”

In the study, I asked you to envision yourself in  one of these landscapes when you think ahead about the new year, drawing it out.

I had fun with this!  Immediately when I read this passage, my heart and mind went back to the wilderness of Africa.  One of our most difficult days there, we drove several hours away from the capital city to a remote area to meet some of my daughter’s relatives, whom she had never met either.

Finally we turned off the main paved  road, onto a dirt road.  Then the dirt road became just a grass trail that led through heavy bush and vegetation. The giant leaves and bushes started to engulf us until finally, the guide that was with us said, “This is as far as we can drive, we are going to have to walk from here.”   There was no more path to drive on.

This was un-charted territory.

WILDERNESS  

All we could do was trust that the guide whom we had hired was not taking us out to be killed by lions so he could run off with our backpacks.  The guide knew where we were going.  And his intentions were pure.  We walked about a mile to the home where our daughter’s relative lived.  And the experience there that day is something we will treasure forever.

But what if we would have told the Guide:

NO.  We aren’t getting out of this van to walk through the wilderness.  We don’t want to experience #NEWTHINGS.  We are good.  We would have missed out on so much incredibleness!!!

So this is my story, and below, on Instagram you can see pictures of my story.   I want to see and hear about yours!  Happy New Year!  I’m praying we all walk with the only GUIDE who is worthy of our trust.  I can’t wait to see what #NEWTHINGS He has in store!