Hey! How was everyone's weekend? Ours flew by way too fast, as all too many weekends seem to do. If there had been a theme to our weekend it would have centered around one word: home.
We have been in our house for almost 5 months now and have slowly been settling in. Because we moved twice in a year, once across several states, we had gotten rid of a lot of furniture and whatnot. It seemed ridiculous to bring certain things with us that we knew were going to sit in storage and/or might not fit well in the new place, so we left a lot in Ohio. Plus the gentleman who bought our house also purchased quite a few things from us. Other items made their way to Goodwill. (I took advantage of the move to finally exorcise myself of some of my husband's furnishings which I had been living with for 9 years despite the fact that they were not in the least my taste.) So we have kind of been starting from scratch in the new place. Luckily a neighbor clued us in to a family owned business that deals in furniture that was "damaged in transit" and is therefore sold at steep discounts. The secret here is that much of the furniture is not in fact "damaged" in any way. And they can even order brand new items from some of the top furniture brands at a much lower cost than we could get it at that retailer's store. We have become very good customers. Yesterday after my daughter's gymnastics class we headed out to see what great finds there may be waiting for us this weekend. The intent was to purchase a rug for the living room, but several hours and dollars later we returned home having bought three stools, a cute chair, a wall-hanging-thing.. but no rug. Still a very successful day. As I looked around at the new items in the house I thought "Our home is starting to come together." Not that it takes stuff to make a house into a home. I think the opposite is often true. Sometimes it seems as those who have the least amount of stuff are the closest. So it wasn't that. But it was the choosing of the stuff together; creating a vision as a family and watching that vision start to take shape. That is what has begun to turn this into not just our new house, but our new Home.
Today my daughter and I set out on a different sort of quest for home: a new church home. Back in Ohio we were members of a local Presbyterian church and were very actively involved. I was a member of the Christian Education Board, taught Sunday School and participated on the VBS Committee several years in a row. It was truly a wonderful part of our lives there and something that I have been missing ever since we left. So this morning we ladies of the house attended service at a nearby Presbyterian church that has been there since 1700-and-something. We were welcomed very warmly by everyone, found seats right up towards the front and experienced a service that put me in mind both of the church I attended as a child and Little House on the Prarie, because unlike so many modern-day churches there was nothing contemporary or high-tech about it. The sanctuary itself was surprisingly small considering that the church had a large sprawling campus. The pews were tiny and the floor literally moved up and down with the coming and going of people in the aisles. Décor was at a minimum, with just one modest banner and two candles adorning the pulpit. The choir was hidden in a balcony behind the pews and one glimpse showed that they were wearing very traditional robes and singing from well-loved hymnals, as did the congregation for each hymn. This was not the full-on rock band stage show sermon,complete with video clips and coordinated lighting, that we had experienced at the last church we attended in NC. Nor was it the pleasant mix of the old and new we had enjoyed at our Ohio church. This was kicking it old school. I rather enjoyed it. I felt somehow more connected to the place, the Word, the people around me than I had at the flashier church. Instead of marveling at the synchronized music and lights I was truly listening to the words that were spoken and the songs that were sung. And isn't that really what going to church is all about? Connecting to God and one another in a way that we don't often do outside of a chapel? My daughter admits to having been a bit bored before the Children's Moment and Children's church commenced, and that's ok. Because even so she marched right up there by herself when the time came for Children's Moment, jumped right in answering the minister's questions of the group and boldly stepped in to help another child carry a banner out of the sanctuary when the little girl's partner literally dropped his end of the stick. She may not have felt as entertained and excited as she did at other types of service, but she was connected for sure. Now I am not sure that this is going to be our church home just yet. An uber-traditional service and questionably-played pipe organ will be a bit of a hard sell to the menfolk of our family. But we will definitely be going back for a second look. We have to anyway. Ainsley came out of Children's Church with a note for me that read: "Your child has volunteered to be the Bible carrier at next week's service!" So I think that means she liked it. :-)
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