TESTING THE WATERS: WFWP GEORGIA PIONEERS THE EXCITING NEW CORNERSTONE FOR HAPPINESS CURRICULUM
Editor’s Note: In late January, WFWP USA announced the development of the “Cornerstone for Happiness: Marriage and Family Seminar”, an interactive one-day seminar that empowers women and men to improve their marriages and families based on the guiding philosophy of our organization. WFWP Georgia shares about their experience as the first chapter to test out this new material. Two other chapters (North Carolina and New York Metro) held Cornerstone for Happiness seminars on March 30th. Look forward to hearing about them in an upcoming newsletter!
Following the debut of the new WFWP curriculum, Cornerstone for Happiness: Marriage and Family Seminar, our chapter decided to dedicate three hours on a Saturday in February to explore it for ourselves. Four women each took one section to practice and present and we shared our impressions and (minor) suggestions for improving it over a potluck lunch. Everyone was inspired about the beautiful slides, the interactive discussions and the depth of the content. One sister remarked, “I have been married for twenty-five years and I needed to hear this.”
After the trial run, we set a date for Saturday, March 23 to invite friends and guests. Beginning at 10 a.m., we had a welcome and a brief introduction to WFWP. Then, Celeste Koshida led us through the first presentation, entitled “Where Are We At?”, which reminded us of the importance of building healthy marriages and families and the challenges that we face in doing so. In part two, “What Can We Do?”, presenter Loretta Anderson explored God’s original ideal for the family, what went wrong and how to repair it. After her talk, we had the opportunity to pair share and reflect on experiences where we were not able to love someone.
After a short break, Lynda McKenzie guided us through presentation three: “A New Way of Looking at Marriage.” The audience was particularly impressed by the quote from author and speaker Gary Thomas, “What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?” For me, one of the great takeaways from this particular presentation and the day as a whole was the concept and activity presented on Loving Actions. A loving action is intentional behavior on our part that is motivated, unilateral, experimental and requires discipline. Instead of trying to get our partners to change, we work at becoming more loving and accepting and focus on what we can do differently!
Discussions on these relevant topics continued as we took a break for a potluck lunch of minestrone soup, bread, quiche, salads and dessert. Gathering back together for the final presentation, I led the talk on communication: “Can You Hear Me Now?”. As we went through several individual listening surveys, we discovered that we all have room for improvement in this area. In fact, we learned that we tend to be less careful in listening to those we are closest to and love the most. As we shared together, everyone could resonate with the quote by David Augsburger, “Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable.”
Through this seminar, we were reminded of the key points that support healthy and happy marriages and families:
Respect and equality are essential for true love to exist
Our words have power, how we speak matters
Working on our marriages is sacred work
Our goal as parents is to model healthy relationships to our children
As WFWP is proudly part of an international movement designed to strengthen and uplift marriage – the International Celebration of Marriage – we concluded with a toast to strong marriages and families centered on God. Everyone walked away with a new appreciation for marriage as a spiritual practice.