BCTC

Mom and Dad were gracious enough to take three children and a dog for the week while Matt and I attended the Biblical Counseling Training Conference in Lafayette, Indiana. This is my third year attending and Matt's second.  As with the other years, it was a great week filled with lots of learning.  Although this is a conference to learn how to counsel biblically, it is primarily for our own benefit in learning how to deal with our own issues and spiritual growth.

For us, the themes of passion for Christ, the importance of prayer, killing pride and pursuing purity were the most convicting and what we hope to focus on personally and as a family.

A few take-away quotes:

1.  God's grace is made perfect in where?  In my weakness!  My weakness will not keep me from effectiveness if I believe the Gospel.  It's my delusion of strength that will keep me from being effective.  It's not only my child that God is working on in a certain moment...He's also working on me.

2.  Pride heads the list of what God hates (Prov. 6:17).  I need to be continually killing pride. I will never drift towards humility, so I have to be purposeful.

3.  I want my children to learn to delight in Christ.  If I have that attitude, it is a start. I can't lead them where I'm not going!

4. I need to love more than I want to be loved because that is the character of God Himself. Unbalanced relationships are a privilege.

5.  Pursue purity your entire life, no matter if you are married or unmarried.  It is just exchanging one kind of purity for another.

One of the most encouraging sessions was on "Desperate Parents Make the Best Parents", which focused on us depending on Christ for the future of our children and not depending on the things we do to turn out good children.  We can parent all three of our children the same way and end up with three different results.  It is only by God's grace that He works in their lives. Our job is to be desperate and cry out to God for help!

Besides learning a lot, Matt and I had some fun, too! We had lots of time to talk in the car riding, which totaled about 22 hours!! 

Not the greatest picture...self-portraits are hard to take with our phones!

One evening we traveled over by Purdue to eat at the Triple X family restaurant.  This restaurant was featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives and has some awesome burgers and delicious homemade root beer.  And yes, despite the name it was a "family" restaurant...I was sure to check that out before we went!

Matt surprised me with tickets to a Casting Crowns concert on Friday night, so were able to end the week with a fun night out.  We got to see Matthew West at the concert, too.  It was a great evening, although we were exhausted from the week.

Matt had Monday off for President's day, which was day of relaxation around the house. It is good to be back together as a family, but now we are back to reality and trying to put into practice some of the things we learned!