Our practical navigation of the transitions from single to married to parents to empty nest to caring for parents and grandparents.

Oklahoma Family Retreat 2014: Key of Promise

<p>Our practical navigation of the transitions from single to married to parents to empty nest to caring for parents and grandparents.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Restoration International

Tom Waters

Alane Waters

Transitions of Life

Well, that was a very bright and cheering song.

Does it kind of instill in us this, kind of invigorating, isn't it?

And the message that Jesus is near fits very well with what we're going to be sharing tonight because as we go through the transitions of life, which is what we're talking about tonight, He is with us.

And we know that our problem and the problems of our fellow human beings is more that we decide to leave him and wander.

So tonight we're going to be talking about what happens between the day we're born and the day we die.

These are the transitions of life and if you have your Bible open with me to Ecclesiastes very familiar chapter 3 and we're going to look there at a couple of the verses Ecclesiastes 3 beginning with verse 1 very familiar about the seasons of life Says that to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven.

And then as it goes through the next few verses, it really talks about the whole spectrum of life, a myriad of things that we will experience, that we will go through as we transition from helpless babies to going to the grave.

Now the helpless babies is A condition we can't do anything about.

And in the last moments of our life, we can't really do much about that.

But in between, the Lord says a lot of things are going to happen.

In verse 10 says, "'I have seen the travail which God hath given to the sons of men, to be exercised in it." And verse 11 ties it all together and he says, he has made everything beautiful in his time.

You know, 1 of the problems that we face is that we don't always recognize the timing that God has in our transitions.

In some of the things that we travail through, the trials, the difficulties, we don't always see why it's happening in the moment.

But if we believe, you believe God's word tonight?

Holds the keys, our theme there, all these promises that are keys to success.

If we can believe, verse 11 says, even though we've gone through all these things, that He has made everything beautiful in His time.

And ultimately, what we're exercised by in these transitions of life that we'll be talking about this evening, ultimately God's plan for us has always been and continues to be the final transition to never part again with God and with 1 another.

You want to be a part of that transition?

So we're going to look tonight at the spectrum of life and every 1 of us are in that journey of life.

Some of you, I've seen some very young babies here, they're in there and they're not going to pay any attention to what we're saying tonight.

But for those of you who are 2 or older you can start hearing things we're gonna be talking about what it's like in those various ages some of the things we experience some of the things we go through and how God wants to use that to strengthen us to prepare us for our eternal home.

So we first want to look at where we start off in life.

And we all start at the same place, right?

As babies, newborn babies, totally dependent.

It's an exciting thing, and I know every parent here in this room and even if you're young people or older or young adults and even for those of you who are grandparents maybe you've had the experience of the grandchildren but the first moments that you see that little 1 does something inside of your head, something inside of your heart, that no matter what you thought and how you planned and and how you thought you're ready for this child, when it happens it's a brand new experience and it's it's very very special and powerful I can remember when our first was born I was fascinated that even her fingernails were developed even they had little white tips on them I mean isn't God incredible this is all happening and you know that we've come a long way in modern technology and medicine and things.

And now, now that we are grandparents and our daughters are having children, it's fun because every week they send us an update on the stage of life.

Oh Emily just has a mango inside of her right now you know and it's about a one-pound little boy developing and so every week they call grandma their grandmother the baby's a great grandma and they tell her grandma this is what I got this week.

And it's developing, and he weighs, and the next week it's a she, and the next week it's a he, because they don't want to play favorites.

You know, half the time it's a boy, half the time it's a girl.

And they compare it to things that we're familiar with in the vegetable or fruit kingdom.

So we all start there and the only thing other than breathing and maybe excreting, sorry for the bluntness, but that babies do is have the suck reflex.

That is the 1 reflex of survival And God has given those little ones that, and when the baby comes, the first thing they wanna do after they make sure, you know, the airway's clear, is they want to put that baby to mama to see that it can start the, surviving, the survival mechanism.

They wanna see that that baby can suck because that's how it's gonna be sustained.

Of course, now we live in a culture, thankfully, that we have other ways to intervene, but that's so important.

And that God saw to put in those little ones, that's all they know how to do.

Well, and then we move into the toddler years.

How many of you can remember something that happened to you at around 3 years old?

Do you remember anything that happened distinctly to you?

And I just want to ask those of you who raised your hands, how many remember good things that happened to you about 2 or 3 years old?

Okay, now put your hands down and those who raised your hands before that had the memories, how many had memories of things that were traumatic that happened to you?

The first, 1 of my earliest memories of my childhood, I was right around the age of 3.

My parents had just become Christians, Seventh-day Adventist Christians.

I actually I have another memory before that.

I can actually remember sipping my dad's beer.

I don't know why you let me do it, but anyway.

Maybe, well, maybe I do know why, but anyway.

The memory I had was in our backyard walking behind the swing set.

My mother took care of children from the community.

My dad had been in the Navy, and so she would take, you know, children in from other homes for the day to babysit them.

And we had the swing set in the backyard, and I liked to swing, and these were my little friends.

They were all older than I was I was the youngest and I remember walking behind the swing and getting hit and flying backwards and being you know on the ground behind the swing and just totally dazed and of course crying after I came around and I learned a valuable lesson I have never forgotten and to this day I've never walked behind anybody swinging ever because I learned the lesson so some of those trip trials that that the wise man was talking about are to teach us lessons that will be lifelong lessons that will preserve our life for the way God designs it to be.

Yes, and 1 of my distinct memories is also a bad memory, and that was when I was just about 4 years old.

I was sitting on the back of my brother's bike.

I was sitting on the back, and I got my right big toe between the spokes and the frame of the bike while we were going rather fast.

Neither have I ever been in a position again to get my toe in the spoke.

So we hope that if you've learned hard lessons that they've been good lessons and if you've learned them through good things that's even nicer.

So children all of you who are toddlers out there 234 years old maybe even up to 5 we'll call it preschool.

Just think all the things you can do that you can talk about with mommy that and daddy that will help you remember the good things, right?

I mean I'm sure you remember some bad things, but let's look for the good things.

And parents rehearse the good things that your child did at these ages so they remember the good things because the bad things tend to want to take the forefront of our thoughts and then we move from that into children many of you here tonight are school-aged children anywhere from 6 to into your teen years We're going to be talking about the primary school age.

And there's a very interesting thing with children in this age category.

Almost all children, when you ask them how old they are, they're something and a half.

We were in New Zealand earlier this year and at the camps that we attend there, they're not like this, they divide us.

We have a meeting every day together with the adults because they divide everybody out and then I might have another adult meeting on my own and he might have another adult meeting on our own and then we're in the youth and then we're in the juniors then we're in the primaries and we're doing meetings at all levels.

Every day, which is quite exhausting, actually.

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Transitions of Life

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Parent Conference

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Sound Doctrine