The PF Women Team at our Annual Team Retreat ~ 2018 Today on Seth Godin's blog, he said: It's tempting to decide to make a profit first, then invest in training, people, facilities, promotion, customer service and most of all, doing important work. In general, though, it goes the other way. Yes, it does. If you are waiting to make a profit before you do these things, in my experience you're not going to make a profit. So many organizations, ministries and churches are struggling with financial issues. I know your pain. As anyone who follows our story knows, our ministry was in a ton of debt four years ago when I came on as director. Since that time, we've gotten out of debt and turned a profit every year. God has done amazing things through out team, for which we give Him the glory! I find that what Seth is saying here is absolutely true, with one disclaimer. For Christian leaders, spiritual disciplines must always be first. Before we started i...
Jerry: Hello. Hello. I'm looking for my wife.[Dorothy looks up, robbed of words. Stunned, she does not move and looks quite apprehensive. ]
Jerry: Wait. Okay, okay. Okay. If this is where it has to happen, then this is where it has to happen. I'm not letting you get rid of me. How about that? This used to be my specialty. You know, I was good in the living room. They'd send me in there, I'd do it alone. And now I just... I don't know. But tonight, our little project, our company, had a very big night. A very, very big night. But it wasn't complete, wasn't nearly close to being in the same vicinity as complete, because I couldn't share it with you. I couldn't hear your voice, or laugh about it with you. I missed my wife. We live in a cynical world, a cynical, cynical world, and we work in a business of tough competitors. I love you. You complete me.
Does anyone who has been married for longer than a few minutes understand where I'm going with this? One thing I've learned in 20 plus years of marriage is that not until a person comes to the point where they have found their absolute completeness in Christ are they able to live in a marriage satisfactorily. If you don't come into a marriage complete in Christ, you sure won't be happy in a marriage until you finally discover that and start living it. I will confess, I was one of those women who got married thinking my husband was going to "complete me". I thought marriage was a problem solver. I was going to feel as if something -- a missing piece -- were added to my life that made all things right. I would no longer feel lonely, and have someone who would fill in all the "gaps" of my life. In the words of the great theologian Michael Jackson, I thought marriage would be summed up as, "The way you make me feel... We as women are notorious for feeling as if we need another human being to find our purpose. And in chasing this it's a never ending battle to find fufillment. When I stopped finding my worth as someone's girlfriend, someone's fiancee, someone's wife, someone's mother, someone's pastor's wife, someone's pastor, someone's friend, someone's _________________fill in the blank here, did I finally find contentment at last. It's so difficult to get teenage girls to realize, they don't need to have a boyfriend to find worth, purpose, fulfillment, or satisfaction. The issue is, we Christian women counsel teen girls like this over and over again -- yet we think when we become women it's okay to find our worth in a man. It's no more appropriate for us to than for them. We are only satisfied women when we come to the point where we recognize our absolute completeness in Him -- where we realize that in God, ONE is a whole number. Why oh why do we think this is a good message for teen girls but not ourselves? Some might ask, if this is true, then - why marriage? Why do we need a man in the first place? First of all, to mature us. I've discovered that marriage is icing on the cake. I enjoy being with Larry. I enjoy my relationship with Him and I love all the benefits of marriage. But they do not complete me. More than anything, I think God gives us marriage to mature us. Marriage is an every day exercise in getting over yourself. If anyone wants to know what marriage is all about they need to realize it's the most humbling thing you'll ever successfully do. Marriage is being humbled by the same person, day in and day out every day for the rest of your life. It's an everday exercise in forgiveness. It's an everyday exercise in out-serving another person. "You complete me..."
you really turn me on...
you knock me off of my feet...
my lonely days are gone..."
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Our completeness is in Jesus Christ, period. And my lonely days were NOT gone until I realized that. I was a very lonely married woman at one time. So lonely, I wanted to die.
Colossians 2:9 & 10 says, "For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority."
Am I anti-marriage? Of course not. I love Larry with all my heart and I couldn't be more pro-marriage. However, only when I realized that my absolute identity needed to be IN CHRIST did I find true happiness. 
It works in the movies...not in real life.
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