Friday, March 16, 2007

Keepers of the Home

This last Tuesday, I was so very blessed to meet and get to know some women through a "Keepers of the Home" meeting. It is a mentoring/discipleship group that is based on the directions given in Titus 2.

This group of about 50 women and a few precious newborns met in the home of Lori Gammon. She has been married for 23 years, has 8 children - some who have been adopted and all are doing homeschooling.

Most of the women who came, found out about this group thru "word of mouth". The news is spreading... Just to be clear, not all these women are homeschooling their children. But most have come with the desire to be Biblical wives, and mother's that God has called them to be. It was such a joy to see so many women smiling and genuinely welcoming each other's presence. It was a time of gathering and hearing from other mom's with helpful question and answer sessions.

Personal Growth was the focus of this meeting.

Through the book, "The Pursuit of Holiness" by Jerry Bridges the question for the night was,
"Am I pursuing what God wants me to do?

Also, What are the goals for my life?
Do I have any goals?
Am I completing those goals?
Are they "God Ordained Activities for my Life"?

Then, highlighted these verses:
James 1:5
Philippians 3: 12-14

We were given a packet with lots of different ideas for making goals. There were examples from other women who had written out what their yearly goals were so we could see how it is done.
Some questions to ask when discovering goals are:
What do I want to do?
What do I want to be?
Where do I want to go?
What do I want to have?

What do we want our
Physical,
Spiritual,
Mental,
and Emotional Goals
to be?

We outlined these steps in getting to a goal:
Writing down the goal,
stating the plan,
the process,
and the prize.

Here are a few examples of goals I made:

Goal #1: Being physically energized
  • The plan: Drink 8 glasses of water a day.
  • The process: Make drinking an entire glass of water the very first thing I do before drinking even a cup of cofee or eating food.
  • The prize: Better health

Goal #2: Increasing my intimacy with God/Trusting God/Being a woman of prayer
  • The plan: Spend time every morning reading the word, writing my prayers, reading a book on the subject. Share with others what GOD is doing in my life.
  • The process: Get up 30 minutes early. Make that first part of morning. Go to bed at a decent time in order to be ready for the morning.
  • The prize: A day that is "ordered" by God. A heart that is more at peace. A life that can see God in all things. A life of serving others.

I usually tend to make short term goals like what we are doing for the weekend, completing my to do lists, upcoming holidays, and etc. But anything other than that just has not seemed attainable. It is hard for me to see the big picture.

I finally understood through this meeting, what it was to set a goal and then work through the steps to get there. Before, I'd wanted a goal, but couldn't get past the fear or the enormous mountains to get there (I hope this makes sense to someone-the ideas are in my head, but getting it out intelligently is rough).

I also think that through my growing older! and gaining some maturity, I am starting to understand the value of a disciplined life. That it is not a punishment, but that there are prizes and benefits to leading lives full of purposeful activities.

The agenda for the next two "Keepers of the Home" monthly meetings will be: Chore sheets/Home schedules, then Marriage.

I wish all of my precious women friends and family could join me on these nights. But for now you all get to experience it through my blog ramblings.

1 comment:

Leah Kadwell said...

This is GREAT stuff, Lisa. I would definitely attend those meetings with you if I were in America. Do they have a book I could order? (I mean other than Pursuit of Holiness...) You also set great, achievable and rewarding goals.