We were expecting to witness God doing Big Things at CONNECT. After all, these were some of the same people who had made the Pursuit 31 Conference such a life-altering event, and there were 42 couples traveling from around the continent to spend several days honing their marriages and seeking God’s will for their businesses. Big Things were bound to happen, right?

No matter how much we anticipate exciting changes, I don’t think we’re ever quite prepared for them. I don’t think we can be ready for the gut-check that comes when someone asks whether you’ve been asking God to guide your decisions or simply making decisions based on what sounds smartest to you at any given moment. I don’t think we can prepare ourselves for the realization that talking about something doesn’t lead to doing that thing unless we force ourselves to make it happen. I don’t know if we simply forget that our marriages need to be cultivated every bit as much as our businesses, or if it’s just easier to accomplish the business to-do lists on our desks and rationalize that our marriages are healthy and therefor don’t need “work.” I don’t think we ever remember quite how big God is until we ask Him to show Himself to us again.

(Thank you, Carol and Allen of Allen Adams Photography for taking this group shot on the last morning at WinShape Retreat!)We’ll be soaking in the practical and philosophical advice from CONNECT for a long time to come. We’ll be keeping up with the wonderful couples from our small group, Kathleen and Joe, Vanessa Joy and Rob, Danielle and Josh, and Gina and Ryan — we all plan to get together via Google Hangout so we can continue our small group, now that we’ve scattered to Florida, Tennessee, New Jersey, Ohio, and California.

And we’ll be back the next time there’s a CONNECT retreat.

God did big things. We can’t wait to watch the results unfold.

~ Laura