Getting Connected

January 8, 2017 at 6:40 pm (Church, community, Friends)

Today we tried out a new church. We had tried one for a few weeks when we first arrived here, based on the recommendation of a couple people we contacted ahead of time. However, we didn’t like the church for some reason or another (I honestly can’t say exactly why, it just didn’t feel like “the one”) and so we decided to keep looking. Then we moved from the old house to our permanent house, and holidays and sicknesses happened… so we finally found got it together enough to try a new church today!

The verdict: we liked it! The big kids went to children’s church, which is something new for our family. We usually like to keep the children with us in the service, but I think both Jonathan and I realize that this is one of the kids’ rare opportunities to interact with people outside the confines of parental supervision. We decided to go ahead and use the resource available to us to enable us to focus better on the message.

Sugar Plum stayed with us in the service, and she did well. She is a very quiet girl by nature, except when she is excited about eating, and we frequently get comments like, “Oh! I didn’t even know there was a baby behind me! She was so quiet!” So we figure it’s safe to keep her with us. It is nice to just have one to corral between the two of us.

The message was delivered by someone who wasn’t the senior pastor. It was good, but I am definitely excited to see what the senior pastor’s style is. That will be the main deciding factor for Jonathan and me when we evaluate the church in a couple of weeks. Hopefully we will like his preaching and we will feel more and more at home as time goes on. It would be so nice to have a church family again. We really miss that part of living in Colorado.

I also have to mention my friend, Gwen, and let you all know how wonderful she is. I was having a particularly rough time of it this week. I called her yesterday and explained some of my struggles. She listened and reminded me of how God sees me, which was the thing I really needed most. Then she got practical (I love a friend who is practical! Some people get upset when friends try to problem-solve instead of only listening, but I do SO appreciate it). She asked me if I had been able to connect with moms here in Wisconsin, and my answer was that I have only found one or two mom friends because I’m home so much with Sugar Plum’s napping. I told her that I would really love to find a group of moms who do a Bible study or something, but that I’m not on Facebook so I couldn’t find that information easily. Do you know what Gwen did?! She offered to look up some groups and send me the contact information. She is making sure I have no excuse to be alone. You guys. Her simple act of love for me was the most meaningful moment of the past month for me.

Be like Gwen. Be a friend.

Thanks, dear friend!