Treading Water

This picture is of Audrey enjoying tonight's meal. Salsa is a favorite - give her 1 or 2 small chips and a mound of chunky salsa and she's good to go. Her quesadilla was gone quickly too. I was in mid sentence talking to Matt when we heard her bang her fork on her plate and say a very forceful "bi, bi." Translation for those who are not quite fluent in 17 month old speak: "bi" is short for 'bite' and her full sentence (if she could speak in them) would have been "Excuse me, but my plate seems to be near empty - I'm expecting you to take care of that problem, stat."

On to the next topic....

We went to Cascade Hills this morning for their service. It was weird. Not weird because of how they were worshipping or anything related to their church, just weird b/c it's not our church home. In fact, right now, we have no church home. We have no church where we can comfortably walk in and be greeted by lots of people that know us, know our names, know our gifts, know our insecurities.

I guess I felt like an outsider. It's been a long time since I've felt that way. Being a minister's family has it's pros and cons, and one of the pros is definitely that when you move to the church - there really is no outsider time. Members don't have to go out of their way to make you feel plugged in, you already are b/c you're one of the very few that work there (or rather one of the few whose husband works there.) You are automatically plugged right in and made to feel like family. The church knows for a fact that you're there to stay (at least for a decent while.) Not that churches don't/dont' want to welcome others, but with minister's and their families it's just different - automatic - with open arms.

I guess I'm also missing the socialization that we are currently doing without. Noone stopped me in the hallways this morning to ask how many times I'd had to watch Hannah Montana this week... Noone oohed and aahed over the girls cute matching dresses... There was no little squeal from the 3 year old room when Julia walked in... There were no comments about football, music, family, etc... all because these people had no idea who we were. Don't get me wrong, they were all very nice - I'm just missing the personalization that comes from actually having connections/relationships with a church family.

We might try another church or 2 to see where we'd like best to attend, but my hope is that we never really have time to get too settled into another church around here. Matt's job hunting and of course, I'm hoping that he finds one soon. I really dislike living with so much uncertainty. With uncertainty too often comes worry and fear and sometime (like right now) those worries and fears feel awfully cumbersome.