Original Design: A 14 Day Devotional on Pursuing Inner Healing in Every Area of Your Life

Original Design

Breaking Cycles of Dysfunctionality in order to Pursue Wholeness!

© copyright 2020 Natalia Venter

© copyright 2020 All rights reserved. This book is protected by the copyright laws.

This book may not be copied or reprinted for commercial gain or profit. The use of short quotations or occasional page copying for personal or group study is permitted. Permission will be granted upon request.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (MSG) are from The Message Bible Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblical, Inc.TM Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www. zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblical, Inc.TM

Scripture quotations marked (NASB) are taken from NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE Copyright (C) 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977,1995 by THE LOCKMAN FOUNDATION A Corporation Not for Profit LA HABRA, CA All Rights Reserved http://www.lockman.org

Scripture quotations marked (NCV) are taken from the New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Cover Design & Layout by Michelle Stockwell

Endorsements

The book you hold in your hand is going to provide you with handles with which to carry this thing called Abundant Life, into every day you live, every corner of who you are, every aspect of what it is to follow Jesus! Natalia presents, from the perspective of a pastor’s heart, a two-week series of insights and invitations to reflection that is compact yet comprehensive, eminently practical and deeply spiritual at the same time. It is a book for use in churches that are leading people into new-found faith, and need to answer the question ‘What Now?’ I wish it had been available when I was a pastor! I commend the author and recommend its use in every church!"

- Costa Mitchell, National Director Emeritus, Vineyard South Africa.

In Original Design Natalia Venter has provided a wonderfully practical guide on the journey to become who we are destined to be by our heavenly Father, people created in His image. Richly illuminated the path ahead of us with biblical truths about God and ourselves as His beloved children, Natalia impresses on us the importance to be and to become whole, emotionally, spiritually and physically. Not only for ourselves but also for generations to come. The design of a 14-day journey proves a very helpful tool if you are intentional about this and seek to discover how the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit journey with us, every step of the way. We warmly recommend this book to every fellow pilgrim.

Menno & Marian Helmus, Vineyard Netherlands

National Directors Vineyard Benelux

I have known Natalia for more than 12 years and have been privilege to see her faith in action and the authenticity of her spiritual journey. Along with her husband Ricky, Natalia has played a significant role in the ministry of Fountain Vineyard Christian Fellowship in Port Elizabeth South Africa.

The things she writes of in this book Original Design have found fruitful outworking and expression in her life and ministry among us. She lives these insights!

This is an exceptionally helpful and practical tool as an aid to healthy spirituality and maturity. She blends reflections from her own story with the wisdom of Scripture and the leading of the Spirit in such a way that hope is born and developed. 

Natalia offers as a wonderfully practical and insightful engagement on the many challenges of life and the process of becoming all that God designed for us to be.

I highly recommend Original Design!

Dave Pedersen

Senior Pastor, Fountain Vineyard Christian Fellowship, Port Elizabeth, SA.

National Director, Vineyard SA.

Contents Page

Preface

Introduction

Day 1  The groundwork—Preparing the soil of your heart & mind

Day 2  Stocktaking

Day 3  Connecting with God as your Dad

Day 4  Parenting—Passing on your  spiritual legacy

Day 5  Forgiveness — Your prison break!

Day 6  Growing pains—Childhood relationships  & siblings

Day 7  Friendships & your superpower—Choice

Day 8  Let’s talk about sex

Day 9  The season of singlehood

Day 10  Forever partners—Dating & marriage

Day 11  Money matters

Day 12  Work - Another day, another dollar

Day 13  Health—Temple care

Day 14  Identity—Who am I?

Conclusion

Original Design

Breaking Cycles of Dysfunctionality in

order to Pursue Wholeness!

Preface

When you take a look at my life from the outside it seems picture perfect. I am a happily married woman with three beautiful kids. I am also a pastor, teacher and author who has had the privilege of being in ministry for over 15 years.

While I am very far from perfect and am still working on pursuing wholeness and more of Christ in my everyday life, most of the relationships in my life can be considered peaceful, healthy and growing.

This, however, was not always the case.

This story starts with a look into one of the most interesting and dysfunctional families that I know. Mine.

I was born to parents who were essentially good people but found themselves in an extremely unhealthy relationship. And like every other similar situation, having a child only made matters worse instead of better.

One of the earliest memories I have of my childhood is being called into my parents’ bedroom and being informed that they were separating. I was promptly asked to pick who I wanted to live with: my mom or dad? What a decision for a six-year-old to have to make!

Not that my life was moonshine and roses before this event, but I recall this being the distinct catalyst for my life becoming increasingly more complicated. This was the start of my journey of trying to navigate growing up between two people who had chosen to live separate lives.

The remainder of my childhood involved living in many different houses, changing schools every year and eventually living between two different continents.

I am one of 11 siblings (one I amusingly only found out about at the age of 21) but they are only half-brothers and sisters who are much older than me. Because of the age difference and the negative relationship between our individual parents we sadly don’t have what would be considered normal, healthy sibling relationships.

In terms of time allocation between parents, I initially lived with my mother and spent weekends with my father.  However, when he left South Africa to move back to South America, this evolved into spending months and years with either one of them.

My different home situations were varied and very interesting, to say the least. My father never ended up settling down and I got to experience many different stepmother figures, some really good ones actually. This made it hard to let go when their relationship with my father would end abruptly.

My mother was more stable and remarried, but unfortunately to a man who was an alcoholic. Their relationship probably had the most negative impact on my life as I spent my high school years living through emotional and verbal abuse alongside her.

However, my teenage years were also the period of time in my life when everything changed for the better, because at the age of 14 I heard the message of salvation for the first time.

I learned that God wanted to have a relationship with me.

This was nothing like my previous religious experiences in the Catholic Church. No, this God cared about what was happening in my personal life and my messed-up heart. He wanted to be part of my everyday life; He understood the whole situation and He wanted to help me through it.

Not only that He also wanted to rewrite my story, bringing wisdom and keys of revelation from my experiences which would result in my becoming a pastor one day and being in an influential position to help others.

But most of all He wanted to help me break free from a generational cycle of negative relationships, abuse, bad decision-making and emotional pain.

My broken childhood story changed from being the script for my future to becoming THE inspiration for a life pursuit of wholeness, purpose and peace.

What was once broken has been made WHOLE—this is my story and the inspiration for this book.

I want to start off by clarifying that this book is by no means an exhaustive guide. In fact, it’s just the opposite really as literally every chapter could indeed be (and in most cases is) a stand-alone book in itself as it tackles extremely deep, complex and broad subjects, such as parenting, finances and identity.

There are thousands of excellent books available on each of these subjects that will cover these themes in greater depth and revelation. Consider this more as the appetizer or scraping the tip of the iceberg on your journey of pursuing wholeness in God.

I wanted to write down the simple truths that the Lord has taught me over the years, and which resulted in my healing and freedom. I also wanted to make these biblical truths EASY to understand and APPLICABLE to everyday life. I also wanted them summarized in one book, because it took me many years to get through all these different subject matters. As much as I have enjoyed this study over time, it would have been extremely helpful to have started with a condensed version of these foundational truths. I have basically written the book I wanted to read when I was first saved and realized I wanted a different life to the one I was seeing around me.

I pray that the Holy Spirit would breathe upon these pages and bring personal revelation and freedom to your life as you go on this journey with him.

Introduction

The word dysfunctional simply means not working according to the original purpose, design or function for which it was initially created.

Have you ever wondered what God’s original intention was when He created this world?

What was His perfect plan for our daily lives, our families, finances and relationships?

What are healthy ways of doing life according to the Scriptures and what are not? And most importantly, once we have identified dysfunctionality (not working according to how God originally intended) how do we break free from these broken, unhealthy patterns of doing life that we grew up in and definitely do not want repeated in future generations?

If you have contemplated any of these questions know that they are really good, forward-thinking questions to be asking yourself, and you are already on the right track to pursuing your healing and wholeness. These questions are actually quite easy to answer and thankfully you don't need a theology degree to find the answers. All the pain that people experience in their everyday lives, such as abuse, crime, sickness, death etc., was NOT part of the original plan! These things are not God’s heart for us. This was not His intention and they were certainly not on His mind when He first created this world!

If we want to understand God’s original intent for us and our lives we need only go to Genesis, the first book of the Bible. Here we see His heart as we get a glimpse of how things were supposed to be!

He created a paradise for us before we even had