Girls Night Out

Last Friday we weren't having our normal Communitas meeting because we were serving at the Homeless BBQ in Detroit. Since we were meeting as a whole, the girls decided to have Girls Night Out. It was a small group; Superstar, Mother Maria, Nurse, and myself. I don't know Nurse well so it was a nice time to get to know her better and hear her story. She's been to India with Pastor and Mother Maria so I was envious of her experiences. I've wanted to go there since the first time I heard about it at church.

They left about 9 but Superstar and I stayed about just past 11 pm. We don't get the chance to talk much in person (LOTS of emailing) so I relish in the chance to speak to her in person.

I mentioned to the ladies about some of my current frustrations with my Man. Nothing horrible - just frustrations. Superstar reminded me of how I should be speaking to him and am not. Mother Maria reminded me of these verses from Ephesians 5 that I know but try to forget:

22Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy, cleansing^[b] her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— 30for we are members of his body. 31"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."^[c] 32This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

She also asked if I'd heard of the book Love and Respect by Dr. Eggerichs. I replied,
"Yup - I bought it for my Man for Christmas this past year" and just
packed it away. A lot of good that was!" After she got done laughing at me (as she often does but I know she's laughing because she's been where I"m at and knows I still have much to learn) she strongly suggested that I unpack it or she would lend me her copy. I asked her why she had it (she's divorced) and her reply was "The Lord told me to read it to prepare for my future husband." See how amazing she is! I was then convicted and changed the subject.

In my past, if I would talk (more like complain) about my Man, friends would agree and commiserate with me in my misery. That is all in good intentions but doesn't help. These are Real Woman who called me out on my behavior. I've never had such good friends who were willing to do that.

On my way home, I gave my Man to God. Sounds easy enough, doesn't it. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I'm quite controlling. Really I am. I've been trying to change him for almost 16 years now to no avail. He has made HUGE strides in change but it is all thanks to the Lord and Pete's willingness to listen and obey. None of it is to my credit. So that's it. I said "God, He is All YOURS. Do what you wish with him. Change him or don't. But please give me peace that he is no longer my concern." I obviously still love and adore him and will take of him as I should and enjoy doing. I just can't try to change him or make him do things he doesn't want to do. It was a wonderful week after I did that.

When we got together as a team this past week-end, E's Mom was talking about some of her voluntary pre-marriage counseling that she and C and going through right now. She mentioned that the Dr. said to her that she need to be nicer to C. She just blew that off. I was right there with her in that sentiment just a few short months ago. I was regularly mean to Pete. After all, that's how he knew I loved him. Right? That's how I am with everyone. People know I use that as a cover to protect my trues feelings. It's my wall that I keep up to keep people out so that they can't hurt me.

Then somehow the conversation turned to mentor couples and E's Mom jokingly said to me, "You guys could mentor us." Chills came across me with more conviction. Sure we could. If they wanted a mentor couple to show them all the things NOT to do in a marriage. Then we are certainly the couple for them.

Praise to the Lord that we are completely different people today than we were on the day we were married! Still broken. Still trying with His grace.

Trusting in The Lord for Provisions

For the past 16 years, I have pretty much solely handled all of our finances with very little input from my Man. God has told us both that it is time for Him to take over and He will work through my Man to accomplish what He wants for us. I have fought him relentlessly on this but I know I must submit. I know He has and will continue to bless us. I need to trust in Him for His Provisions. I've been working on a series about this on my Frugal site but it's not ready to publish yet. I couldn't not share this and it seemed to fit on this blog more appropriately.

Today my Man and I tried to do a budget together. We've tried before. It normally ends up with him walking away from me in frustration and me crying and mad at him for not understanding. We have tried again for the past two weeks. Our meetings have ended better than normal but still not with a successful budget. Today was our third attempt. We still don't have a budget but we did get further in our discussions. I think by next week we will have it.

I was just catching up some blog reading from this very busy week-end we had. Gibble always posts song lyrics on Sunday to a favorite song of his. Since on my PC with no TV on (in-laws are in TN for the week) I thought I would put some music on my laptop while I read. Gather Little By Little actually had a guest post up too that just hit me! You can read the full post here titled Whatever Happened To No Other Gods. Two sentences jumped out at me. " Matthew 6:24 reminds us that we cannot serve both God and money and it’s clear we’ve made our choice. Our treasures are stored in our 401(k) where compounding interest means more than interest in God’s plan.

Pete just came into the room and I read it to him. He thought that was interesting given our conversation earlier today. Then he opened up his Experiencing God workbook. This was the first thing that he read:

"I'd rather have Jesus than silver or gold, I'd rather be His than have riches untold; I'd rather have Jesus than houses or lands, I'd rather be led by His nail pierced hand." By Rhea Miller

Pete and I were JUST talking about his 401K today. We have a comfortable chunk saved up from just the past 2 years. I'd hate to let that safety net go. But should we liquidate it, we'd be out of credit card debt. When we move and Pete changes jobs, we will have access to that money. Yes I know there are tax implications. We are also paying interest on that debt. We'd have to start all over again. But we are only 34 & 32 years old and neither one of us can ever imagine retiring.

I have to use God as my safety net - not our 401K.

"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:21

I See A Trend Here

Tonight our Communitas team met with Pastor's Coach. I wasn't sure what the point of us meeting him was. I knew there must be something to it or Pastor would not have arranged it. As it turns out, it was very beneficial to meet him. We met with him for about 2 hours and I'm sure we could have met for another 2 hours easily!

He had a lot of very useful information to share. He asked pointed questions that got us all talking. He even got us started on a somewhat heated debated. Not in a bad way. Just in a way that allowed many people to speak about how they were feeling and to bounce ideas of off each other. The conversation is far from over but it made me happy he was here to chat with us. He's not a coach in the sports sense of the word, as in he knows everything and it has to be his way or else, but in a way that he has done this a lot and observed others doing it. He's here to help us avoid making the same mistakes that others that have gone before us have made.

He spoke about a few specific things that clicked with me personally. I recently started to notice a trend with the team about getting healthy. A few months ago James said he was working out and giving up meat. God has been speaking to me about the same thing for quite sometime now but I've been choosing to avoid it. Hearing that was just another message to me that I needed to do the same thing. Many team members are fasting on sweets until they sell/rent their houses, find jobs and apartments in NYC. That will also make them healthier. God has very clearly been telling me that I needed to give up junk food (thankfully nothing about giving up chips & salsa : )
J sold his car and is riding his bike 4 miles everyday to work. T$ is eating healthy!

Last week my Man mentions that he hopes to finally get his health on the right path and start jogging again. He quit jogging in the middle of last summer. He goes to see a specialist tomorrow which gives us hope that he may have a diagnosis that will explain years of health issues. This diagnosis will allow us to finally treat it and get him on track to being healthy again. He is also fasting on sweets.

Coach had a few key points he wanted to share with us. One was that we needed to get healthy. We needed to take our best physical and emotional beings to NYC.

That's it. I see the trend. I need to do it. I need to truly fast on sweets and eat healthy. Always. I know this but now I'm convicted.