but where you feel most alive."THURSDAY WAS LIKE A COMING HOME EXPERIENCE. It is crazy that just a couple days ago I wrote about my first experiences in small groups in Woodcrest's women's ministries, to think of how different things are today.
Thursday was one of those days where I just loved being a woman.
The last couple weeks when I was mostly home bound again, I wasn't able to go to small group on Thursday mornings and realized how much I missed that time, I love hearing whoever is up next as an opening speaker each week, it seems each week there is someone who gets up there who has secretly been reading my journal or was able to read my heart, I am always amazed at how God speaks to me in those times with those women.
But, more than anything, after the large group meeting for that week's speaker, and we all go our separate ways to our various small group Bible or book studies, I have LOVED the small group this semester.
If the first small group meeting was any indicator of what we had in store for the semester, I tell you what, it has only gotten better each time.
I always leave feeling empowered.
I got up yesterday morning and felt like my body had been hit by a truck. Nothing was feeling right, my legs were already numb and tingling, everything was tight and already spasming, there was no way.
I finally fought through it and decided, you know what, I'm going. So Ben took me, after telling me a million times it was okay that him taking me meant he was going to be late for a meeting at work.
He knew as much as I did, that I just needed to go.
Being with these women is like water to my soul. I felt like I hadn't even been gone, we all just jumped right back in and when I got there, everyone was asking me how I was doing, this and that about health stuff and I was just like, all I know is that I'm here. I made it. And I just really missed you guys.
I was reminded, home is where you always have your place.
Just how I love coming home to Ben or as he reminded me this morning when I was in the living room when he came home from work and dropped his bags at the doorstep just to give me a hug, he said, “Do you know how much I love coming home to you?”
Home is where you are missed.
I realized more than missing small group time, I just missed my friends. Even though sometimes in this season I have longed for a lot of my close friends who now live out of town, to be here and be able to walk through this season with me, the days when I'm having a meltdown and just need someone to come over, a girl, to just sit and let me cry (as my husband is GREAT at this and I love being married to someone who values emotional processing as much as I do), we ALL know, married and single women alike know the truth, that there are times when you just need your girls... nothing can replace our need for female relationships, though it may look different in different seasons, we all still know, sometimes you just need your girls!
But sometimes because these relationships are so new, they can be exhausting. Not that THEY (the people) are, but the energy that must be put into building new relationships, and sometimes when you're in seasons that are challenging, you just want someone who already knows all the back story and you share a history with. But even though they are new, they are still valuable relationships. And it felt good to have the feeling returned, that they also missed me.
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I don't think there has ever been a time where I have been so keenly reminded of how much we all need community. I remember coming back from the honeymoon and as Ben and I were met with the unwelcome return of this illness in full force again, it seemed too sharp a dichotomy. We had just spent the last two weeks with most of our best friends and family, we had day full of celebration and love on our wedding day and of course, a blast on the honeymoon.
It seemed too quick for the party to be over.
Grief made its welcome return and greeted us at our doorstep. I remember the nights we ate dinner in our living room just staring at all our unopened wedding gifts. We barely had enough energy to get through the day, let alone figure out a time to open gifts together.
As my condition grew worse and more and more grief set in, we realized we needed people, we needed community again, this time at greater depths than before.
I started going to the women's bible study, led by a couple other fellow staff women and will never forget walking in for the first time. I realized it was the first time I was at a Rock event in four months. (Well, if we don't count my wedding).
It was so weird. It was so jarring to be there, it seemed life had stopped for us, but life kept going for everyone else. And I was four months behind.
But, God has provided the community we need. And continuing to go to Bible study this summer, even though I left many times in tears feeling like an outsider of a church I have been a part of for eight years, eventually it got easier. And now months later, Ben and I feel transitioned back into our Rock community, though it looks different for us still in this season.
And my small group of women at Woodcrest this semester has been nothing short of a Godsend.
I felt like I was coming back home.
It didn't matter how much time had passed or how long I had been gone. I was welcomed. Received. And left feeling more alive again. More whole, more myself. And more in love with this amazing God who so abundantly provides for His children in all things, out of the glorious riches of His mercy and grace...
to be continued...
*Photo above of one of my best buddies, Olivia Vitale, during her time in Burkina Faso. As I was looking through photos to figure out which one I felt best fit with this post, this one kept coming to mind. In her nine month stay, Burkina and these children became her home and still are today, a place where she truly felt alive.
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