a huge thing i miss about home is just being known. home is a place where you are known and people love you even after knowing you with all your flaws. it is a good feeling, a sense of security. when moving to a new place there is a desire to be known. not like being famous but known for who you are.  when moving to a new place every contact, interaction kinda feels like a blind date. that nervousness, worry if they like you or not. the fear to not be totally yourself because if they fully knew me then they would not like what they discover. and i guess being somewhere you grew up there are already those secure relationships. i think moving somewhere new and being in ministry is even trickier.

 being a pastor or a pastor’s wife there is a desire to be what people want you to be. especially church planters, my desire to be a church that people want to be apart. even though i know there is no perfect church, not even close cause church is made up of all us imperfect people with all our baggage. but that knowledge does not take away that crazy desire to perform. i tend to be a people pleaser and i am trying to focus on pleasing God with my life and not people.

we had a busy month with nine visitors from CA and all visiting in about three weeks time with some overlap. six of our visitors were former youth group students who are now about to be sophomores in college.

 we had this class since they were just little sixth grade babies. the guys included kevin mayer, nick maurer, nick tate, jared sumners, jayson schivley, and josh armijo. we had lots of fun. hannah adores her “big friends”. four of these guys helped us move across the country one year ago. they took the road trip with jeremy for five days driving countrywide. it was hard to see them go last year but i had a much harder time this year.

i started crying before they even pulled out of the driveway. i cried off and on all day. kinda like that saying, “don’t know what you got til its gone.” but we did know what we had. what a wonderful ministry in CA. great friends, family too. what an amazing group of students we left behind.

 i guess being removed from youth ministry a year just gives me more time to reflect and remember all the good times we had. i know God has adventures in store for us here in NC. already watching Him move. so i am not longing to go back just enjoying what we had. their visit was also so refreshing for jeremy’s soul too. and for that reason i was also bummed to see them go. it was just good for him to relax, have fun and be himself.