Greetings Brothers and Sisters in Christ!
Hello, friends – we didn’t manage to get a newsletter out in March, there was just too much going on between our Missouri retreat and other general business. We have much to share with you, so we hope you’ll give us a few minutes of your time now – and then make an effort this week to stop by the forums and see what’s new and what’s on people’s minds.
Biblical Families Radio returns this weekend - Sunday night!, at a new time: 8pm EDT, 5pm PDT. That’s 4/11/2010. The topic should be of interest to most of us: Sharing Your Beliefs Regarding Christian Plural Marriage. We’ll discuss the struggles and the victories associated with revealing to family, friends, church and work beliefs regarding Christian Plural Marriage. When should we keep silent, and when should we share all? Listen live here and plan on calling in to participate. If you can’t listen live, the show will be available online immediately afterwards.
Retreat News: We had a great time of fellowship in Springfield the weekend before Easter! The fellowship continued for some well after the weekend. There were a number of families going through changing circumstances, which led to discussions on ‘the cost’ of plural marriage today – and JulieB coined our catchphrase for the weekend: “the viciousness of (forced) monogamy”!
Next up is the Tennessee mountains, July 9th-11th, and we do expect this to be our largest retreat yet, and we hope to be back to the meals-together format that has worked so well in the past. We expect to have one or two special guests again this year. More details will be available by the next newsletter, all you need to do now is circle the date, and schedule enough time to get there. We’d really like to pull more of the northern Biblical Families members this time – from Michigan to Massachusetts. If you have any questions, you can write anytime: retreats@biblicalfamilies.org
This month we’d like to give the majority of this space to some thoughts from two of our members. They were not aware of the other’s article, and we didn’t solicit either one – do you think it’s coincidence that they ended up quite literally ‘on the same page’ this month?
Look At What the Cat Dragged In…
By ‘cbv3123’
“Honey, look at what the cat dragged in! Hurry sweep it out now!” “No babe, that’s my new wife.” As a future first wife, I imagined this being the scenario. I imagined all the piercing pains in my heart and all of the tormenting thoughts that might be present in my head when a new woman walked into our lives. I spent time in study and in prayer over the potential emotions that might arise. The longer I spent talking with God, the less she looked like something the cat just dragged in. Pro. 18:22 “Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD.” He didn’t specify first wife, second wife… just wife. Second wife is just as much a wife as the first. She is not something to look upon with disgust or disdain, but a precious gift from God, entrusted to your husband. This says that she is a good thing - If you two are truly ‘one’ then it should not be possible that she is a ‘good thing’ for him, and not for you. Embrace her, welcome her into the home and enjoy the favor of the Lord. Teach her what you know, learn what she knows. Try to see it as God sees it. She is a good thing and a blessing to your family. If we open our hearts and truly give her the opportunity, we might find out that this scripture is just as true as the rest!
Testimony of a Shifted Paradigm
By ‘wifeone’
I thought I knew something about life and then sudden upheaval occurred. You may most likely be reading this because the area of your life in which you have experienced upheaval probably involved your marriage or a shaking of your Christian doctrine. I can only speak from my personal experience and as a woman, about how I had to shift a major paradigm in my life. A paradigm shift is when you make a change in your thought patterns. It is a radical change in personal beliefs and complex systems or organizations. You have to replace the former way of thinking or organizing, with a radically different way of thinking or organizing. This is not something that just happens. It is a choice that you have to make. It is a difficult thing to do. And you have to be very honest with yourself. You have to grab all of the scripts that you were taught throughout life. These scripts taught you what to do in certain situations and circumstances throughout life. You learned them from family, friends, culture, society, church, school, TV, books, and anything in the world around you. These scripts tell you what emotions you should feel, and how you should react to things happening in life. But have you ever pulled these scripts out and examined them, to see if they are backed by truth or not?
Many people have gained a knowledge and understanding of what true, biblical marriage really is and isn’t. But that doesn’t mean that they have shifted their paradigm. I came to a knowledge and understanding of polygyny a little over a year ago. But I was still using the old scripts that I had been taught and that had been reinforced over and over all throughout my life. I fully understood polygyny. Yet I was still reacting to things as if I did not understand it. The emotions I displayed and the pain that I felt, where symptoms of the things that did not line up with truth. I had to dig deep within myself to pull out the strongholds, which were built upon lies. Lies were holding up strongholds of information that I had thought were facts about how I was supposed to function in marriage, within our cultural and religious beliefs. These false facts were the backing and inspiration for the scripts that I was living and acting out daily.
Oh! So much pain was felt seeing my husband with another woman and then understanding that God did not disapprove of it. This did not line up with anything I had in my reference book of things I had learned throughout life. I thumbed through the glossary pages of my heart to try to find the emotion that I was supposed to feel concerning this. But I found nothing helpful. Nothing was written on that subject within my heart. So I resorted to the old scripts and information that I had learned in the past. Thus, my husband and I didn’t understand why I was experiencing so many negative feelings, despite fully understanding the truth.
I prayed for wisdom. Then God taught me that I have to shift my paradigm. I threw away the old scripts filled with negative emotions and fears of a failed marriage. I threw away all of the commentary that would roll into my head referencing how, “normal women” would act in a situation like this. I threw away the culture and the tradition of marriage that has been morphed from its originality, into a remix, straight from the hands of Roman men, with a dash of this and a hint of that, along the way; finally to end up in my lap, handled way too much and unrecognizable, even by God Himself. I had to sift through all of the clutter and throw away the junk. I took a risk. I chose to move forward in a new thought process, even though everything around me said that I was moving backwards by choosing to share my husband. I shifted my paradigm. It is the most difficult thing I have ever had to do in my life. And, I am still working on it. But, I had to begin by building a new stronghold. It is built upon truth this time. It is built upon the word of God. The world told me I was losing my marriage. God told me otherwise:
-Luke 17:33 (King James Version) “Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.”
Wow. We added both of these articles to a new forum thread here, where you can comment.
--------------------------------
God bless you and your family. Let us know how we can be of service to you. Drop us a note anytime: staff@biblicalfamilies.org
Hello, friends – we didn’t manage to get a newsletter out in March, there was just too much going on between our Missouri retreat and other general business. We have much to share with you, so we hope you’ll give us a few minutes of your time now – and then make an effort this week to stop by the forums and see what’s new and what’s on people’s minds.
Biblical Families Radio returns this weekend - Sunday night!, at a new time: 8pm EDT, 5pm PDT. That’s 4/11/2010. The topic should be of interest to most of us: Sharing Your Beliefs Regarding Christian Plural Marriage. We’ll discuss the struggles and the victories associated with revealing to family, friends, church and work beliefs regarding Christian Plural Marriage. When should we keep silent, and when should we share all? Listen live here and plan on calling in to participate. If you can’t listen live, the show will be available online immediately afterwards.
Retreat News: We had a great time of fellowship in Springfield the weekend before Easter! The fellowship continued for some well after the weekend. There were a number of families going through changing circumstances, which led to discussions on ‘the cost’ of plural marriage today – and JulieB coined our catchphrase for the weekend: “the viciousness of (forced) monogamy”!
Next up is the Tennessee mountains, July 9th-11th, and we do expect this to be our largest retreat yet, and we hope to be back to the meals-together format that has worked so well in the past. We expect to have one or two special guests again this year. More details will be available by the next newsletter, all you need to do now is circle the date, and schedule enough time to get there. We’d really like to pull more of the northern Biblical Families members this time – from Michigan to Massachusetts. If you have any questions, you can write anytime: retreats@biblicalfamilies.org
This month we’d like to give the majority of this space to some thoughts from two of our members. They were not aware of the other’s article, and we didn’t solicit either one – do you think it’s coincidence that they ended up quite literally ‘on the same page’ this month?
Look At What the Cat Dragged In…
By ‘cbv3123’
“Honey, look at what the cat dragged in! Hurry sweep it out now!” “No babe, that’s my new wife.” As a future first wife, I imagined this being the scenario. I imagined all the piercing pains in my heart and all of the tormenting thoughts that might be present in my head when a new woman walked into our lives. I spent time in study and in prayer over the potential emotions that might arise. The longer I spent talking with God, the less she looked like something the cat just dragged in. Pro. 18:22 “Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD.” He didn’t specify first wife, second wife… just wife. Second wife is just as much a wife as the first. She is not something to look upon with disgust or disdain, but a precious gift from God, entrusted to your husband. This says that she is a good thing - If you two are truly ‘one’ then it should not be possible that she is a ‘good thing’ for him, and not for you. Embrace her, welcome her into the home and enjoy the favor of the Lord. Teach her what you know, learn what she knows. Try to see it as God sees it. She is a good thing and a blessing to your family. If we open our hearts and truly give her the opportunity, we might find out that this scripture is just as true as the rest!
Testimony of a Shifted Paradigm
By ‘wifeone’
I thought I knew something about life and then sudden upheaval occurred. You may most likely be reading this because the area of your life in which you have experienced upheaval probably involved your marriage or a shaking of your Christian doctrine. I can only speak from my personal experience and as a woman, about how I had to shift a major paradigm in my life. A paradigm shift is when you make a change in your thought patterns. It is a radical change in personal beliefs and complex systems or organizations. You have to replace the former way of thinking or organizing, with a radically different way of thinking or organizing. This is not something that just happens. It is a choice that you have to make. It is a difficult thing to do. And you have to be very honest with yourself. You have to grab all of the scripts that you were taught throughout life. These scripts taught you what to do in certain situations and circumstances throughout life. You learned them from family, friends, culture, society, church, school, TV, books, and anything in the world around you. These scripts tell you what emotions you should feel, and how you should react to things happening in life. But have you ever pulled these scripts out and examined them, to see if they are backed by truth or not?
Many people have gained a knowledge and understanding of what true, biblical marriage really is and isn’t. But that doesn’t mean that they have shifted their paradigm. I came to a knowledge and understanding of polygyny a little over a year ago. But I was still using the old scripts that I had been taught and that had been reinforced over and over all throughout my life. I fully understood polygyny. Yet I was still reacting to things as if I did not understand it. The emotions I displayed and the pain that I felt, where symptoms of the things that did not line up with truth. I had to dig deep within myself to pull out the strongholds, which were built upon lies. Lies were holding up strongholds of information that I had thought were facts about how I was supposed to function in marriage, within our cultural and religious beliefs. These false facts were the backing and inspiration for the scripts that I was living and acting out daily.
Oh! So much pain was felt seeing my husband with another woman and then understanding that God did not disapprove of it. This did not line up with anything I had in my reference book of things I had learned throughout life. I thumbed through the glossary pages of my heart to try to find the emotion that I was supposed to feel concerning this. But I found nothing helpful. Nothing was written on that subject within my heart. So I resorted to the old scripts and information that I had learned in the past. Thus, my husband and I didn’t understand why I was experiencing so many negative feelings, despite fully understanding the truth.
I prayed for wisdom. Then God taught me that I have to shift my paradigm. I threw away the old scripts filled with negative emotions and fears of a failed marriage. I threw away all of the commentary that would roll into my head referencing how, “normal women” would act in a situation like this. I threw away the culture and the tradition of marriage that has been morphed from its originality, into a remix, straight from the hands of Roman men, with a dash of this and a hint of that, along the way; finally to end up in my lap, handled way too much and unrecognizable, even by God Himself. I had to sift through all of the clutter and throw away the junk. I took a risk. I chose to move forward in a new thought process, even though everything around me said that I was moving backwards by choosing to share my husband. I shifted my paradigm. It is the most difficult thing I have ever had to do in my life. And, I am still working on it. But, I had to begin by building a new stronghold. It is built upon truth this time. It is built upon the word of God. The world told me I was losing my marriage. God told me otherwise:
-Luke 17:33 (King James Version) “Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.”
Wow. We added both of these articles to a new forum thread here, where you can comment.
--------------------------------
God bless you and your family. Let us know how we can be of service to you. Drop us a note anytime: staff@biblicalfamilies.org