dwelling with friends

On January 19, 2008 we were honored to have our friends from Toledo, Ohio come down to the little town of Vandalia, to visit for the day. It seemed like it had been years since we last saw them, and it was hard to believe thinking back that only a couple of months had passed. We were very excited to see them, and to see Chelsea and Anne as they advance through the pregnancy months.

Since we have moved from Bowling Green, it seems that we've had a very hard time getting plugged into a new Home Group. We went through a four week orientation class at our new church and waited anxiously to get placed into a new group.....October passed....November passed....December and the blur of the holidays came and went.....January comes and after waiting anxiously almost to the point of the anxiousness fizzling out, we attended our first group since the big move. We were very nervous. This group had been meeting together since the summer of 2005 (which was when we started the Toledo group) and we weren't quite sure what it would be like to join and already solid group. It was held in a neighboring town and when we found out it was in an apt I was pretty pumped. Maybe these couples are exactly like us. Recently married, trying to make it through the hardships of becoming accustomed to married life, dealing with low paying jobs, trying to just survive through the 20s. .... to say the least we weren't dissappointed, but we weren't exactly satisfied either. The people in the group were very interesting and had a passion for the Lord, but they were all single. We walked in, as the only married couple, feeling a little out of place. We left that night wondering if they felt akward being in the presence of us as well.

I thought more that night and the days that have since passed about our previous group. I remember the first night we met at Jim and Jan A.'s place. I got in the car for the trip to BG, and saying to Matthew "God has perfectly placed us here. We need these people, we are supposed to be here. We are supposed to fellowship with these individuals, and they will be our life long friends" Sadly I didn't walk away from the last group feeling this way.

The last two years spent in BG were difficult. We walked through those years, confused about what God had for our lives. Matt was teaching at a private school on a low salary, and I was working in a window treatment company. I spent my days in a design room office, seriously doing what I wanted. We had about 5 customers come in at the most each day. In 8 hours. It was a LONG 8 hours. I was often poked fun at because I had a "cake job". But it was still a place that I really didn't want to be at everyday, 46 hours a week, 6 days a week (for the majority of weeks in the year), so I still considered it work. Sometimes I would come home literally exhausted from all the time that I had just sat there thinking. It was kind of a slow torture to the mind.

In the fall of 2006 we thought that maybe God was calling us into missions. Our home group friends were behind us all the way. I remember many Wednesday morning sitting at the comfy chairs with Chelsea in Beaners (nowBiggB! SOO DUMB! but love the Carmel Marvel..yum!), feeling the slow cold draft come in from the opening doors, talking about Cairo, Egypt. I was so excited. This was something I felt God was calling for my life. But sometime I think I was just excited because I wanted so badly to feel like I had a place and that God had a plan for me. I was excited because I thought I found it. Turned out that wasn't for us after all. In the end our home group friends were there after the dissappoining trip to Florida for training. They were the there the many months later, hearing our complaints, and frustrations. I've learned now that if you let your dissappointments anger you, you're trying to fill the place that only God can fill, with things that don't really matter. It ends up puncturing little holes in your spiritual cup.

It seems that our Home Group friends have experienced alot of our lives, more than I ever realized. This past week I've found myself staring at the picture that Chelsea took for us that weekend. It dawned on me that these people, these friends know us more than any of our friends. They know the struggles, the happy times in BG, the late night drum sessions in the basement, the obnoxiously loud game nights with the warm fire beating our backs. They KNOW us. I miss having friends close like we were to them. I miss them alot....they'll never be replaced, but I hope we find a group like that again.