Doing Life Together

Today's my birthday. As my mom reminded me last night at about 9pm, "29 years ago [she] was laboring HARD to bring a reluctant baby into the world." It's also the day that my own little one turns 16 weeks old (aka: 4 months).

It's tough being so far away from family on days like this (and not just because my father-in-law, in his eagerness to wish me a happy birthday and apparently forgetting the two hour time difference, woke me at 3:45am with a text message!). It's made the more difficult knowing that today is also my little nephew's 2nd birthday, tomorrow is my little sister's 26th birthday, and Saturday is my mother's (we'll leave it blank) birthday. But praise God, for He has blessed me with an amazing community of adopted family and friends clear out here in Southern California.

Craig and I had various church leadership meetings to attend yesterday afternoon. In the women's meeting, our women's pastor talked about her hometown in Maine of 700 people, a general store, an antique shop that's always closed, and two churches of 70 members each. She described the fund-raising jars set up in the general store and gas station to raise money for a teenaged boy who fell off a roof and his single mother. She described the outpouring of love (and food!) that the community gave her as she mourned a death in the family. She described the unlocked doors, the tire swings, the children riding bikes down the middle of the road. I sat in the meeting and felt homesickness wash over me. I thought, "That's what I had. That's what I want for my Evelyn."

Well, as my mother so wisely pointed out to me in August: God has me exactly where He wants me. God has Evelyn exactly where He wants Evelyn. If Evelyn needed family nearby, He would have us near family. But He doesn't, because she doesn't. He has us here because, for whatever reason, here is where she (and I and Craig) need to be.

In the general leadership meeting following my bout of homesickness, our head pastor talked about his desire for our church to grow in community. And he defined community as "doing life together." Community is not about tire swings and unlocked doors. It's about pouring love into other people's lives as you go through life together. And that's exactly what Craig and I have been blessed with out here. We have a community tucked away in this massive urban sprawl. We mourn together, we celebrate together, we eat, fast, and pray together. We do life together.

Praise God! (I'm so blessed to have you guys--you know who you are!)

Meanwhile, here's a video of my baby. Because I know that's the only reason most of you read this blog anyway.