The Child at the Adult Table

Well I had another great weekend. And by great weekend, I mean one that had blowouts for the Gators and the Packers. Just throwing that in. But moving on from my fanhood-

I have really loved getting to know more people at Calvary Chapel. The church has a great understanding and follow through of the Great Commission(all nations, Judea and Samaria, local and abroad). We have been praying for the persecuted church, particularly for missionaries that we support on Yemen. 99.99% of Yemen is Muslim, and christians are jailed, including three men that our missionaries connected with who came to the Lord. This week, we began praying for a man in our chuch who is moved to leave his very high paying corporate job to go to Yemen. And at the end of the service, another woman came forward and gave her life to God. Just an awesome morning.

Sunday night, I went to a Calvary Life Group for the first time. At this point, the church has these small groups in different areas in and around Chattanooga. Right now, there is no age specific group, so there is a mix of young and old. Or so I thought. I called a woman from Hixson that hosts the life group at her house with her husband. She invited me out and was excited about a new face in the group. When I got there, I realized that I didn't quite fit the norm of the group. And by the norm of the group, I mean social security checks recipients. There were 6 married couples and one widower and me, the only person under 40. So I stuck out a little bit.

But God really taught me alot from this group of people. They have all been believers for a long time and married for a long time. Being a young single guy, I can not relate at all to the state of life that they are in. But I am also a people watcher. And it was amazing to see the way the husbands talked about and treated their wives. To me, it's not all the big things that you see in movies and junk like that. The lesson was on appreciating the great things in life. And none of the men talked about trips to Hawaii or athletic feats or promotions. One man said that the favorite part of his week was walking the dog with his wife. Another man talked about how much he loves watching his son with his girlfriend and just seeing them laugh and goof around.

I have also been blessed to have so many friends get married recently. Basically most of my friends in Chatty are married or moving that way. I have definitely seen a change in the guys, too. Not that they were bad before, they were just missing the other half. With David, I have seen a big change. Alot of it could be that I wasn't around him alot with Emily there(the whole different states thing). But hearing him talk about Em and the way he has incredible joy anytime she is around is awesome. And then there is Forrest and Alex. There was a long time that I knew Forrest where we wondered and hoped and prayed that God would bless him with a wife. And now that he is married, wow, they are like that cool couple from high school that is really into each other. But in a good way.

So all of that is to say that being a people watcher can be good. From the 40-pluses at life group to the newlyweds, its neat to see God work. And I'm starting to think that these petty things that I worry about (job, school, bills) will work out and I can enjoy those things that the more experienced people from life group enoy.