I'll Be Right Back

Hello lovelies.

I am so excited to be leaving for a Women's Retreat in just a few more hours.  We're going to have so much fun shopping and growing in relationships together and learning about different personalities.

I have always enjoyed studying personalities.  Don't you love how God created us all so differently and yet at the same time all in His masterful image.  I love that God values us...as individuals...enough to make us uniquely ourselves, but I love even more that God puts His image on us.

We are bearers of His image through our emotions, our personalities, our critical thinking skills.  But the very things that make us like God are also the areas that our faith and actions are most tested.

Here's the thing.  The Bible says that God is love and if we are to bear His image and to do Him justice we must learn to love like God.  In the book  The Two Sides of Love (great book), Gary Smalley and John Trent write, "[God] is always soft on people yet hard on their problems."  Wow.  Isn't that so profound and very true.

So now here we are, learning to love like God, taking all of our personality problems, and submitting them to the standard of Jesus Christ.  In order to do that we've got to understand our personality.  Why did I do that?  Why does she/he do that?  How should I respond in a healthy way that  validates her/him as a person and still speaks to the problem?  What in my past led me to make that decision?  What actions can I take to not make the same decision again?

That's what this weekend is all about.

I wish you could go with us.  Maybe next time.

When I get back I'm going to have pictures and information and fun spots to hang out near Branson and Springfield, Missouri, just waiting for you to read about.  Let's catch up in a few days.  In the mean time, check up with my sister Dalayna.  She blogs over at Pointing Up.