Refine Us

Relationships are difficult. They are full of give and take, compromise, love, grace, truth, mistakes, apologies.. the list goes on and on and on. You open yourself up to other people giving them permission to love you and to hurt you. They are scary and exciting and frustrating and refreshing. It’s not for the faint of heart. They’re absolutely worth the all the trouble we go to to have them. They make our lives…beyond ordinary.

All relationships are sacred, but perhaps the one type of relationship that seems be under attack the most, the hardest to maintain, the one that throws us for the biggest loops, causes the most heartache and joy…is marriage.

Marriage is a battle field,(do we have any Pat Benatar fans?)  and every marriage is different. Each person brings something totally different to the table. So…how do we do marriage well? How do we make marriage something worth fighting for? How do we prepare for marriage well? How do we recover from a marriage that left us brokenhearted? How do we seek to see and love the people with whom we are in relationships….like Jesus does? Where do we even start?

Those are tough questions, but essential to having relationships that make us better, that bring us closer to Jesus….that are beyond ordinary.

Next weekend, January 23-24, Justin and Trisha Davis, authors of the book Beyond Ordinary will be here for the Refine Us-Marriage Conference. They’ll share their story of joy and heartbreak and their journey back to each other. They’ll give us tools that will help us make our relationships extraordinary!

If you’re happily married, If your marriage is struggling, if you’ve been married for 38 years or 6 months, never been married, or you’ve been married and hope to be again, we encourage you to come. It’s for everyone. We were not created to do life alone.

Relationships matter, they are worth the work and worth fighting for! If you only do ONE thing this coming week, register for this conference. You will not regret it.  Click here to register.

See you this weekend!

Nicole Case
Web Administrator

Advertisement

Drifting

And just like that, it’s 2015.  Sometimes I’m amazed at how fast life passes me by. Blink, and the year is over! And sometimes, I’m amazed at how long it takes for a day to pass by. Like the entire day went by in slow motion.Time is a funny thing.

As I have gotten older, the things that impact me and bring me to my knees have changed.  Things that I never saw in my teens, I see weekly now. Cancer, divorce, and death all rear their ugly heads far too frequently. War, poverty, and violence fill up my view of the world. And if I’m not careful, these things can also change the way that I see God.   It’s a daily practice to make sure that I continue to believe that God is who he says He is and that I live my life like that. If I’m not careful, it’s actually quite easy to drift away from church, from reading the Bible, from prayer, from community.

Have you ever found yourself drifted in your faith? Blink, and it’s been a year. Try to get back from where you drifted from and it’s like every day is hard.  Do you have daily practices?  How do you make sure that God is getting the attention He deserves from you?

The beautiful thing about January 1’s is that it’s a great time to reflect on where we have been, how we got there, and then dream about where we want to go and what it will take to get there.  Crossroads wants to help you!  Perhaps you want to meet some more people and grow in your faith?  Our small groups are a great place to do that and they launch in January.  Maybe your marriage needs a little TLC?   We have an amazing marriage conference at the end of January you won’t want to miss. You can find details, here! Maybe you need some adventure and need to be inspired by God’s work in the world?   There are mission trips a plenty!  Maybe you’ve drifted and you just want to know that God exists and He loves you. Our upcoming series “Simple” will help you find your way back.

It’s never too late to try something new or to begin again. And after 2014, I’m incredibly grateful for that.

Lisa Adams
Director of Missions