Doing LIfe

Over the past several years, I have heard a phrase again and again at church. It was phrase that was supposed to signify the deep relationships that you made with people. The phrase was "doing life" with each other.

I know I didn't really understand that. We had people we knew and waved at on Sundays and even once in awhile had dinner with. But do life with? Not really. One Sunday they even showed a video of a group of people at our church that were "doing life" with each other. Their connections seemed genuine and they talked about how they shared happiness and struggles. I knew that our small group while very nice, wasn't anywhere near that point.

Over the past eight months though I have slowly watched a group of people come together. The circumstances that brought us together were definitely not orchestrated by man. People who I am sure never imagined being friends with each other are.

We are all as different as can be. We are young and not-so-young, black and white, kids and no kids, paper pushers and fixers. We are different and yet we share so much.

The guys have established a night out each week where they watch a sporting event and eat and talk. The woman get together every few weeks and have dinner and talk.

Bud and I share responsibility for teaching a Kindergarten class with one of the couples. We ate Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas dinner with another couple. We text and Facebook. When our house flooded, these people pitched in and helped us move furniture, fed us and cut our grass. We laugh together and sometimes even cry.

We are not perfect and I know we drive each other nuts sometimes. Some of us are structured and always on time, while others of us definitely are not.

Tonight at church we were instructed to get in smaller groups and pray. I looked down our pew and it was completely filled with the people we are "doing life with." How blessed we are.

To Bob and Laurie, James and Cortni, Jeff and Michelle, Tony and Tracy-Thank you for "doing life" with Bud and I.

Happy Valentines Day 2011

Happy Valentines Day to all of our loved ones, friends and family.

This year we went simple. Simple gift for Bud (a new Georgia Tech chip and dip set for his man cave) and Georgia Tech shirts for the two little girls and one Georgia shirt for the bigger girls with earrings for all three.

We had a wonderful time creating Valentine boxes on Sunday afternoon in our pajamas at the kitchen table. I loved picking out the scrapbook papers with them and deciding what creations to cut out with out Cricut to make the "best Valentine's boxes ever".

Our mess

Abby's box

Maddie's box

Maddie girl

Sweet Abby

The gift

We were involved in a car accident a few weeks ago. Thankfully no one was hurt but our van was totaled. I was given the task to clean out the van prior to it being towed away by our insurance company. I quickly stored everything in a few big bags and threw them in the garage.

Last night Bud asked me for something and I realized that it was probably in those bags. Reluctantly I headed to the garage and began to sort through the bags. I stumbled upon a CD of pictures. I have no clue where they were in the van or why they were there. I came upstairs and put the CD in the computer never expecting it to work.

It did work!

And when the pictures opened there were pictures of a beach trip that we took with my dad, my stepmom, mother-in-law and a few friends in 2001.

I cried when I came on the first picture of my dad holding Abby as a baby.

I felt like I could almost reach through the screen and touch both of them. And for that moment, I was in the moment. I heard the laughter as our family sat around the pool talking that day. I heard my Dad humming to my daughter and her sweet little face lighting up. And I wanted so badly to be back in that moment again. To be back before our family knew pain, before life got hard and difficult and before we knew the pain of loss.

I am so grateful to have found these pictures, to remind me of that vacation, of that time in our life, of what my dad looked like when he was whole and healthy, of what my sweet girl looked like with her chubby little cheeks and her sweet curls on top of her head. And I am thankful for gifts from God because this is what this was to me in a very rough week. A gift.