Week 13

What is easy for you to celebrate in your life right now?

                Honestly, the things I celebrate are my family.  In mornings when my husband walks through the door after working all night I celebrate that he is home safe. Sometimes I really wish he was in a different profession, but I know that God has him where he is for a reason.  When I say goodbye to him at night, I entrust his safety to God, but when he gets home and I get to hug him and see for myself that he is safe it is easy to celebrate.  It doesn’t take thought or effort to rejoice in these moments.

                I am so blessed to have two amazing boys.  Celebration comes in so many forms with these two.  It is often the small things that cause major celebration.  Things like: hearing my two year old pray, hearing him say “I love Sammy” (his little brother), seeing Samuel wide eyed looking around, hearing him coo and make his sweet little baby noises, getting more than two hours of consecutive sleep.  When I look at these boys, I cannot help but celebrate what God has given me.  Just seeing them grow and develop as they should makes me celebrate.  I am all too aware how amazingly blessed and fortunate I am in these areas.  God truly is so good.  

Week 12

Look back on major decisions, struggles, adjustments, or periods of change in your life.  Can you identify any places in which you wish you had sought corporate guidance or in which you missed opportunities to be helped by those who could have provided loving, wise direction for you?  What can you learn from these experiences that will help you grow toward a more vital participation in community?

Unfortunately I can think of too many times where my husband and I have missed opportunities for corporate guidance.  One of the most significant periods of change for us was after having our first child.  Life literally felt upside down.  We had been married 7 years, had both started our careers, bought a house, were hugely involved in youth ministry at church, and had recently done a ton of traveling when we decided we should start our family.  We had no idea how difficult it would be for us to adjust to our little one.  We loved being parents, and we loved our son, but we did not know how to function.  We took a break from almost all ministry, and nine months later we were still struggling to figure out how to balance it all.  As hard as we tried to claw our way back into serving, things were never the same.  Had we spent some time in seeking corporate guidance, I think this transition would have been so much smoother.  We did ask for people to pray for us that we would know how and when to jump back into ministry, but we never asked people what they felt like God was saying.  In fact, this whole concept is a little new to me.  I've always been a fan of "seeking wise council," but it has never crossed my mind to pursue "corporate guidance" as Foster describes.

Had we intentionally sought people out to help us navigate life after our son, I believe we would have been so much more effective.  Even now 2 1/2 years later we are still struggling to seek Gods will for us in regards to ministry.  Corporate guidance is a brilliant approach to finding clarity for what God has.  I was amazed when I read about the couple who sought corporate guidance regarding whether they should marry or not.  I am fascinated by this concept, and am eager to pursue this disciple of corporate guidance.  I can think of several areas of our life right now that corporate guidance would be tremendously helpful.  The idea of living in this kind of community sounds truly amazing.