Love and Respect - Closeness

Hi everyone!


Hope your week is going well! We are plowing through Love and Respect and I know I can speak for all of us as I say we are definitely being challenged in many areas, which is so good, because challenges move us toward change. We have to begin to realize that our marriages are such a process of seasons of growth, and we can never settle in and feel like "we've got this". It is at that moment that we are easy targets for the evil one who absolutely hates the idea of a healthy marriage and family.



We started with the acronym C.O.U.P.L.E.

C loseness

O penness

U nderstanding

P eacemaker

L oylaty

E steem



There is another C.H.A.I.R, but that's weeks down the road. I will say, that COUPLE is geared more toward the man, and CHAIR toward the women. We are praying that these next weeks you will absorb these truths like a sponge that will ultimately help your marriage be all that God created it to be in Him.



CLOSENESS

We talked for most of the class time on closeness/connection. Here are some of things that helped us define closeness.

*inseparable; comfort; trust; share with one another; intimacy; to know; soul to soul; touch; tolerance; heart to heart; not necessarily proximity; common goal

LIFE CHALLENGES: when I'm sick; birth of child; sickness of child; death of a parent; financial struggles.



We agreed that in those life challenges God can use them to draw us closer, or if our marriages are on a shakey or shifting foundation, they can drive us apart.



A woman's innate desire is be close to her husband. Many times in confrontation, it is a woman's way of crying out for connection/closeness with her spouse. As we learned from the book and workbook, a man moving toward his wife and realizing her need for closeness will take a step off the Crazy Cycle and move onto the Energizing Cycle.



Know that you bless us every week with your input as we talk through this thing called marriage. I know we're getting stronger!!

40 days

40 days of rain
40 days of manna from heaven to feed the people on their way to Canaan
40 days moses with God
40 days of temptation in the desert, Jesus conquered

40 days from today we will CELEBRATE our RISEN SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST! (picture the exclamation points going to infinite).

as a brief brief overview above, we see that in 40 days people change from the inside out….Will you join with me for the next 40 days (starting today)let's pray with our spouses…Yea for the next 40 days, let's not miss a day in coming together with the one, that we stood in front of friends and family and proclaimed that God joined us together……pray with each other for the next 40 days…..are you in? Good I see some heads nodding, I hear some stomachs flipping with nervousness, legs are swaying back and forth, questions rolling in the head "will he/she pray with me" YES!

love em up!

half way scared

You ever watch a squirrel trying to cross a road? Yea it's crazy, but when you stop a minute and think we have some similar traits. Oh i don't mean in how we cross the road, however, i have felt like a squirrel at times when crossing the roads after some sporting events.

Next time when you see a squirrel scurrying around with the tail flying all over the place, take notice. The one i watched today had the head going back and forth at record speeds, darted out to the middle of the road, looked back to where he or she (sorry wasn't that close)heard the noise of the on coming vehicle, dissected that they couldn't make it and scurried back to their original place of preceived safety, therefore, traveling the same distance back, as the distance that it would have been to cross the street completely. Whew...and as the squirrel would then look back over his situation, he finds, he's right back where he started.

Aren't we the same way in our lives.....yea....you see, the squirrel knew the land, the terrain, the danger from where he came.....what he didn't know, was the land ahead of him and if it was more dangerous getting across the street, than where he just came from...it was the unknown...fear grips us. In our daily walks in recovery, we/i can understand walking, scurrying, running, head darting to and fro, wondering what the next step should be, who's watching, what am i protecting....man can i get across NO...i must go back....but i don't want to go back....dag gum...what to do? HELP

Hebrews 13:6 (NLT) That is why we can say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper, so i will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?

Think i'll cross that street now, come on along and join the journey....