The Rear View Mirror

Moving away from home for the first time in my 30's has been an interesting experience. On the one hand it has been liberating. I feel like I'm going away to college and realizing for the first time that I can handle life on my own. It's also been a great bonding experience for our family and a great time of growth for our kids. We've enjoyed all of the fun that comes with being the new people in a city, meeting new people, experiencing new things, laughing about the things that are so different here than they are back home (like the Razorback obsession, or the fact that a couple of people are "y'all" but a whole bunch of people are "all y'all"!).

At the same time we have gone through periods of difficulty in adjusting. Recently we realized that after a year in Little Rock we still had very few really good friends. Although the ones we did have were a blessing, we were still having a hard time getting connected at our church of 6,000 people. We were in a small group with some wonderful couples but the relationships there weren't as strong as we'd hoped they would be. And basically we started to feel lonely and homesick. We started to spend our days looking back and saying "Don't you miss....how we knew everyone at Calvary....how close our care group was....the way Dave did worship....our friends...our family....our life."

Larry and I are both in BSF this year and really enjoying it. Through our study of the life of Moses we realized that we were being the Israelites. We were in the desert, aka Little Rock, saying "Why did you bring us here? Life was better in Egypt." aka St. Charles. After sharing this with a friend she gave me an analogy that made so much sense. She said that we can glimpse into the rear view mirror of life for a little while but if we keep our eyes fixed there we will crash. We realized it was time to start looking through the windshield again or we were going to crash.

We met with Lance, one of the pastors at our church, to talk to him about this. He was such a blessing to us and really helped us to put some perspective on our situation and give us some great ideas and tools to move forward. To start we decided to find a new small group. We truly loved the people we were with but felt that it would be wise to get in a group with people who we are already connected with and strengthen those connections. It just so happens that there is a group on our street at the home of a FamilyLife staff member. It seemed like an obvious place for us to be. Our old group was so wonderful and supportive of us when we told them our decision. We are truly thankful for their place in our lives. We will start with our new group on December 9th.

The other thing that we are going to do is really dive into serving at church. We've dabbled in it but not gotten seriously connected. Larry is going to stay where he is which is playing guitar for children's ministry, but start serving weekly, and I am praying right now about where God wants me. I'm making contact with the special needs part of our children's ministry and there is also a need for a mentor for a 5th grade girls group. Hopefully in the next week or 2 I will have a permanent place to serve as well.

We are feeling good about these changes and along with some other adjustments we hope that we can make the most of our time here in Little Rock...living life through the windshield and enjoying the glimpses in the rear view mirror.