Long weekends and lessons...

So, the weekend. We had some of our best friends in from Michigan this weekend. It was so fun to spend the time with them. It just renewed my aching for them to live closer. It’s so funny to hear myself say best friends, because we hardly talk to them as often as we should if we were best friends, but nonetheless, they are like siblings to us (the good part of siblings…).

They brought their two children and we spent the weekend eating and talking…and we even took them to church and small group with us. Now they know they have people praying for them here in Tennessee too…not just to bless them, but to move them to come here! I am so grateful for my friends and everything they mean to me.

Also, this weekend, I had to give up the second pair of shoes in as many weeks for “personal sacrifice.” As a human being, I hate sacrificing…I hate giving up something that is mine, because I feel personal ownership. This would be why I am being called to sacrifice more often, I believe. There is a message in this for me…the things I own are not my own…they were provided to me by what God has granted me with and given me the ability and opportunity to earn. Therefore, it is His. And so, I have “lost” two pairs of shoes. I say lost, but what I mean is, I had to pass on two pairs of shoes. Two pairs of my favorite shoes, I might add.

But, one pair of shoes was given to those in need of shoes. The other was given to a friend to help her think about me and the sacrifice I made in giving them. So at least now I know Amy will be thinking about me!

And I can always replace shoes…that was not the point. Sometimes, we have to be reminded that our attachment to material things is a little too large in the scheme of things…that we need to be reminded of our purpose in life…and that is not to acquire “stuff”. When we give, we serve and we love. That is how I look at it…and that is how God looks at it. He loved us enough to give His Son. My shoes look amazingly insignificant now…