THE SURVEY IS UP!

The Marriage Survey is up at my personal blog. Please visit BECAUSE I LOVE YOU and print off the survey. The post is a "Sticky Post" and will be on top of my blog until the 11th. Please post anonymous comments and share as honestly as discretion allows. I'm praying for God to be huge.

Thanks a bundle.

Redemption

**STICKY POST** Scroll down for newer posts. This post is stuck to the top! Kind of like Peanut Butter. I pray you are blessed.
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Would you help me? Please pray and share as the Lord leads you.
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I need testimonies or stories of how redemption has worked in your marriage. The following Four areas are the Segments in which we will talk about "REDEEM" - 1.) Covenant, 2.) Time, 3.) Tears, 4.) Harvest.


How has God worked redemption in any of these four areas in your marriage? For instance, has there been a time when you believed that nothing good could come of your experience because it was so painful and ugly but then God totally redeemed the experience and used it to bring healing, restoration and even better His glory to the situation?


By submitting a comment you are agreeing to allow me to use your testimony - if you would prefer to submit it anonymously I would welcome that - and would be willing to protect your identity.


Please make sure you have your spouse's permission and input before you share your testimony.


Thank you in advance.

I have a survery posted here... I may sticky it to the top. I'm also posting a survey at my BECAUSE I LOVE YOU blog since it gets a little more traffic. The survey at Because I Love You is for wives... and so I ask you to prayerfully consider answering the questions and helping me to understand where all of you get hung up in the whole godly wife issue...

I read Ephesians 5:33 in the Amplified and said, "Oh Come On..." My husband laughed at me. But go on and read it yourself. If you don't have an amp Bible then hope on Biblegateway.com and CHECK (a) IT OUT!

Then check out my survey tomorrow and give your most heartfelt response the questions there.

Love you guys!

Okay, I'm crying...

Here is the deal:

I really have been having to surrender this dream to God and surrender to the time it will take to work through the process...

WHY?

You might ask, and rightly so.

Well, because I've prayed for years and months... and did I say Years? Years for God to make me into the wife He created me to be and for Scott to grow into the man He created Him to be. After so much time, and coming to the end of myself. FINALLY. I have had to deal with the fact that some things are not going to happen on my time table. GRRR!

I am, in my flesh, an instant gratification kind of girl and let me tell you - I want to jump start this thing and get moving on it. But, God is working patience on me in every way and I am learning to enjoy the journey. Learning.

And what does God do?

He gives me a glimpse of His glory in that man of mine tonight. Saturday, I wrote out the first lesson in an hour. I had studied several hours a couple of days this past week sorting it out God just finished it up for me nice and tidy on Saturday night around 11:30 PM. So, when Scott came to bed I unloaded the download on him in a big way. I felt like I might explode.

Scott listened, he asked questions and seemed to engage the entire conversation. All this while we were both tired and awaiting an early riser call from the alarm clock for church the next morning.

So tonight as he was climbing into bed, I pulled out my notebook and said can I share a few things from my notes with you. He said, "Yes."

I almost didn't because I thought I was pushing the envelope and his patience. But, he assured me he wanted to hear what I wanted to share. He listened and when I finished he said, "Baby, that was really good."

I could hardly believe my ears. God is so good, and so is my husband. And He's growing us up every single day! I love both of them so very much.

(The signature says its from both of us, but this one is really just from me... :o))

How Can You Join Our Journey?

Pray! Pray! Pray!

We are going to need all the prayer we can get. I've been looking up old prayer partners and enlisting their services. We've been standing on His promises and today my precious man thanked God for giving us the ability to dream, my hubs acknowledged that He is the one who gives us our dreams and our future. It was so beautiful to hear those words.

I have seven retreat overviews with four segments each, and I've already had one person who said - "Sign Us Up! We'll do one here." It is the small Baptist church where Scott and I began our journey with God nearly nine years ago. Oh the Glory of it all... He will bring us full circle.

My husband saw me feverishly writing the notes for the first lesson yesterday and asked, "What's that?"

I said, "The notes for the first series of lessons. I've been on auto download all day."

He smiled. "So, this means that you are going to teach and I'm going to take care of the horses?"

"Well, not exactly. I know you aren't comfortable talking in front of people, but there will be things you can do up there with me. You'll never be up there alone and neither will I. This is all about us and God - not me or you."

My husband gets the deer in the headlights look on his face everytime he is asked to pray. He does it well, he has great insight... He just lacks confidence. He prays everyday for God to make him more like Him. And I know that He is. In time my man will be everything He has called Scott to be and I am so grateful to just be a part of the journey.

My husband smiled, seemed a little easier and listened as I told him all about the lessons. Because I want ALL OF YOU to come to our Restoration Ranch ... I'm not going to write about the lessons here. But truthfully... They are so good - I am learning a ton. WHOO HOO!

Love you and thank you so much for coming along this trail ride of life with us. The everything we've been through is so worth the promise we have in our hearts. Love you again! Be Blessed.

Is Anything Too Hard For God?

I included Jeremiah 32:6-27 in my post yesterday. I was sitting at Chik-fil-a drinking lemonade and trying to wrap my mind around the thing while flipping to Jeremaih 33 when I saw Jeremiah 32 and this "heading:" Jeremiah purchases a piece of land. I thought.... HMMMM!
So I read the chapter and my heart started racing and my head felt as if it might spin. This passage is for us. When I came to the last two verses, I just felt like jumping up and down. I didn't because that in Chik-fil-a might get you asked to leave.

26 Then came the word of the Lord to Jeremiah, saying,
27 Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is there anything too hard for Me?

Jeremiah 32:6-27 (AMP)

Jeremiah receives word from the Lord to buy a piece of property from his cousin in the land of Benjamin. Jeremiah does as the Lord bids him to do. He purchases the land without any trouble at all. Then he has the documents placed in a jar to be preserved to mark out the great thing the Lord had done.

Why?

Why was Jeremiah buying a piece of property that he had a familial right to purchase and possess mark such a remarkable occasion?

Because it didn't make sense. No one was buying property in Judah and Jerusalem at that time. Most of the people were being carried off to Babylon for exile and captivity. But, Jeremiah was granted the privilege of purchasing property in a nation under seige. Furthermore, there was no guarantee that Jeremiah would get to keep and possess the land with the Babylonians coming against the Southern Kingdom as they were.

So Jeremiah prays and says "Lord you are so awesome, so amazing and wonderful, but surely you know the entire nation is going into captivity yet you had me go and buy a piece of land?" (My paraphrase)

God's reply, "Behold (look here I want you to see this) I am the Lord God of everyone and everything - is anything too hard me?" (my paraphrase)

Is anything too hard for God. If He places a dream in your heart, can He not fulfill it?

Yesterday morning as Scott and I prayed together I confessed to God we wanted this dream only if it was His dream because our dream doesn't work without Him. It was near lunch time that I was reading Jeremiah 32. And when I was leaving Chik-fil-a Scott called to ask me about where we were going to put all the people! Confirmation, confirmation, confirmation.

I was rehearsing the ranch in my mind all the way home and getting a bit overwhelmed. So last night at church we went to a class on hearing God and I heard Him say, "Stop trying so hard. I got you. You're mine."

We are the sheep of His pasture and nothing is too hard for Him. Has God given you a dream in your heart that you long to fulfill? Please share one paragraph in the comments and tell us about your dream.

Welcome to the Dream!

I pray that you are blessed and join us as we pray through this dream and journey with God. My husband and I lay looking into one another's eyes by the soft light filtering in through our bathroom door last night as we began to envision this dream.

The Ranch.

A place to be renewed, restored, refreshed, revived, resurrected, rescued, related to as well as a place to remember, reconnect, recommit, renew, reconcile, rediscover, and retreat with your spouse or family to new levels of relationship with one another and God, as well as see God begin the work of healing through intensive retreats designed to facilitate reconnection, recommittment, restoration and Revival in your lives. I pray you are blessed and pray God brings light to the darkness as we seek to do His will with what He has given us.

SIDE NOTE: Last night we talked about all the couples and families whose lives could be changed by coming to a retreat facility built as a place of worship where God's presence is invited to minister and heal them. This morning hubs called:

Him: About the ranch?

Me: Yeah?

Him: What are we going to do with all the people?

Me: What do you mean?

Him: When they come where will they stay?

Me: I had in mind a large house so they could stay with us.

Him: Oh.

Me: Why?

Him: Well, I was just thinking if we build a place with classrooms, and you know more rooms for them to stay then we could start hosting the family reunions for your mom and dad, too. Get those started again!

Me: Well, I had thought of that. I was actually writing about the dream just now. I wrote - Full service, commercial Kitchen.

Him: Well, I just thought about that.

Me: I'll write it down. Maybe we can start by hosting three or four couples to our home for the retreats and then build it out from there.

Him: Yeah, maybe.

We concluded our conversation by acknowledging that we must begin sowing toward the dream God has given us and understand that what seems too big and impossible for us based on who we are and have been - is nothing compared to what God can do with those who are diligently seeking what He has called them to do. We are seeking.

"Jeremiah said, "God's Message came to me like this: Prepare yourself! Hanamel, your uncle Shallum's son, is on his way to see you. He is going to say, 'Buy my field in Anathoth. You have the legal right to buy it.' "And sure enough, just as God had said, my cousin Hanamel came to me while I was in jail and said, 'Buy my field in Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin, for you have the legal right to keep it in the family. Buy it. Take it over.' "That did it. I knew it was God's Message. "So I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel. I paid him seventeen silver shekels. I followed all the proper procedures: In the presence of witnesses I wrote out the bill of sale, sealed it, and weighed out the money on the scales. Then I took the deed of purchase—the sealed copy that contained the contract and its conditions and also the open copy— and gave them to Baruch son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah. All this took place in the presence of my cousin Hanamel and the witnesses who had signed the deed, as the Jews who were at the jail that day looked on. "Then, in front of all of them, I told Baruch, 'These are orders from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel: Take these documents—both the sealed and the open deeds—and put them for safekeeping in a pottery jar. For God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel, says, "Life is going to return to normal. Homes and fields and vineyards are again going to be bought in this country." ' "And then, having handed over the legal documents to Baruch son of Neriah, I prayed to God, 'Dear God, my Master, you created earth and sky by your great power—by merely stretching out your arm! There is nothing you can't do. 18 You're loyal in your steadfast love to thousands upon thousands—but you also make children live with the fallout from their parents' sins. Great and powerful God, named God-of-the-Angel-Armies, determined in purpose and relentless in following through, you see everything that men and women do and respond appropriately to the way they live, to the things they do. " 'You performed signs and wonders in the country of Egypt and continue to do so right into the present, right here in Israel and everywhere else, too. You've made a reputation for yourself that doesn't diminish. You brought your people Israel out of Egypt with signs and wonders—a powerful deliverance!—by merely stretching out your arm. You gave them this land and solemnly promised to their ancestors a bountiful and fertile land. But when they entered the land and took it over, they didn't listen to you. They didn't do what you commanded. They wouldn't listen to a thing you told them. And so you brought this disaster on them. " 'Oh, look at the siege ramps already set in place to take the city. Killing and starvation and disease are on our doorstep. The Babylonians are attacking! The Word you spoke is coming to pass—it's daily news! And yet you, God, the Master, even though it is certain that the city will be turned over to the Babylonians, also told me, Buy the field. Pay for it in cash. And make sure there are witnesses.' " Then God's Message came again to Jeremiah: "Stay alert! I am God, the God of everything living. Is there anything I can't do?" ~ Jeremiah 32:6-27 (MSG) (Emphasis Added.)