Love is...

My instagram photos are nice, eh? My facebook statuses are positive and I appear to have so much together. And truthfully, a lot is going very good in my life. This is a combination of prayer, scripture study, and time management. But. (There is always a but, right?) No one is perfect. In my family we have adopted our churches policy and no perfect people are allowed. 

With the start of the new year I knew I wanted to do two things different in my family; 1. I wanted to be creative in parenting and 2. I wanted to be proactive. I knew that each of us struggled in a different area and that we needed to begin to work on those things, pray on those things, and be proactive. 

So last week we started the love is challenge. What is this? It's simple. It's speaking over our lives as individuals what we know God says we are and then walking in that truth. You see while we are sinners we are also redeemed through Christ's blood. Because of that redemption power and through our helper, the Holy Spirit, our weaknesses are able to be made into strengths through Christ.

2 Corinthians 12:9 states "And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." 

We wanted to take this to another level though. We started by sitting down as a family and identifying what we struggle with the most. Once we identified that unloving trait (ie: selfishness) we replaced it with a loving, Christ like trait (ie: generosity). Then we took it one step further by making a vow to focus on this until we didn't struggle with it as much and could move on to a new trait. With this vow we decided to write a heart on our hands with what we needed to work so that we would have a consistent visual throughout the entire day. 

Walk with me a second.

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I struggle with anger. I believe it is something that is passed down through the generations in my family. I have prayed and broken the generational curse but I am still very much aware that I need the Holy Spirit's help on a daily basis.

My replacement trait is being slow to anger. Christ was slow to anger and it is my prayerful goal to master this part of self-control in 2014. I have been writing out very specific prayers (I will share some of those later) concerning anger and I pray most of them daily. They are full of scripture and encourage my spirit. I realize every time I talk that I need to talk with a loving spirit, be quick to listen and very slow to speak. 

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Traveling Man's struggle is not the same. He struggles with laziness. Particularly at home. He's a very hard-working man in his career but tends to want to lay around while at home. He was first to admit that he wanted to be more like Jesus and be hard working. Love is not lazy. Love is hard working.

Yes, all of our kids are involved. Ask Sophia what love is for her.

She's a rough kid naturally but the bible says that love is gentle and kind, meek and humble. Love for Sophia is gentle.

Kaidance struggles with meanness. She comes from a blended home and we notice a serious increase in her meanness after coming back from the other parents home. This is partly due to transitioning into a different environment but we also know what the Bible says.....

Joseph is not too young either. He has a biting issue when it comes to nursing. But we know that he's a baby and still wanted to pray specific things over him. For Joseph love does not...

Each and everyone of these help us to remember that we are not perfect. That we need Jesus and one another. We need to be encouragement to one another and to love one another while being slow to anger, loving in kindness, being gentle, and hardworking.

We pray specifically over these areas daily. Asking the Lord to soften our hearts and create in us a desire to thirst for the goodness of these traits and how they can impact our lives and those around us.

So, today, what is love for you?

Be Blessed,
Meg