Hello Friends,
I hope that you are relaxing and enjoying your Sunday. We had the most wonderful time today. We had the opportunity to go 'home' to visit the church I grew up in, the church Bart moved to when we started dating, the church we got married in, and the church we continued to attend and serve at for two years after we were married. This church is home to us. The people there are our family and we love them dearly. I sang on the worship team at that church for something like 13 years of my life. I literally grew up on the platform there, singing on the worship team nearly every Sunday. I feel like I have about 30 or 40 sets of parents at that church even still, 5 1/2 years after leaving. Can you tell how much this morning meant to me?? :)
The only reason we don't still attend that church is that it's about a 45 minute drive -- on a Sunday morning with no traffic! Say nothing of the hour and a half it took us to get there for Wednesday evening services, going thru rush-hour! Bleckth! It was probably the hardest decision Bart and I have had to make yet, leaving that church, but obviously the drive was a killer and not only that, but we really felt like God was tugging at our heart strings, urging us to be relevant in our own community. What I mean by that is that we couldn't possibly invite our neighbors to go to church with us, when our church was a minimum 45 minutes away. Does that make sense? And so, after much prayer and consideration and after GALLONS of tears, we made the decision to leave and find a church closer to home.
I suppose I should interject here and say that I lived over on the Missouri side of the state line growing up and Bart was a Kansas boy and so when we got married, since he already had a beautiful home in Kansas, I came to live with him here. That is how we came to be living so far away from the church we so loved.
Many have said that we should just move to Missouri and all would be well...... except that we love our home. LOVE it. We love our location. We love where we are in proximity to work and everywhere else that we go. So moving isn't really a viable option. I personally think that the church should just move to the corner here where we could walk to it on sunny days, and all of our dear loved ones that still call that their church home, should just move into my neighborhood and become my neighbors. I don't suppose this is a very viable option either! Hee!
And so it has been 5 and a half years since we last attended a church service there. My little sister (Grace) and her husband (Chris) still go to church there, so we don't feel completely disconnected but still.... We've been to several weddings and such since then, but to actually worship with those that have meant so much to us over the years was SUCH a blessing to me today. I can't even tell you how much that church family means to me, even now. They blessed us beyond measure today, making a huge fuss over our visit and showering us (SHOWERING us!) with love and hugs and well wishes. My heart is just bursting with love and emotion, even as I type this. We will certainly not let another 5 years go by, before visiting again!
This brings me to my card for today! Thought I forgot, didn't you! Well, today's card goes right along with those thoughts of home, because this card for Dad makes me laugh out loud! The stamp says 'remember this' and then the journaling I wrote on it is what Dad used to always tell us when we were little. We would be in bed for the night and we would holler out to our parents in the living room. The conversation would go like this....
Us: We can't sleep!
Dad: Be quiet!
Us: But we're not tired!
Dad: Go to sleep!
Us: But we can't sleep!
Dad: Yes you can!
Us: No we can't!
Dad: Yes you can! (Here it comes....this is what the card says.....this is what he said to us a MILLION times....) "Close your eyes and close your mouth and go to sleep!!"
LOL!!! A million times! I'm not kidding! Only, occasionally, he'd be so tired himself that the conversation would go like this.....
Us: No we can't!
Dad: Yes you can! Close your eyes and close your nose and go to sleep!
Us: DAD!! You said NOSE! We can't close our noses or we won't be able to breathe!!
Dad: OH Hush!
Hahahaha! He really did accidently say nose a couple of times and oh how we would get so tickled. Then we REALLY couldn't sleep! Good times.
So there you have it. Lots of thoughts of home today. What is 'home' to you? What makes you think of home?
Until tomorrow....
P.S. Thank you to my sweet friend Rebecca Grohall who was kind enough to send me this fabulous piece of balsa wood to use on my card. She cut it out using her Top Note die and her Big Shot - both from Stampin' Up!
P.S.S. Thank you also to the kind folks at Hero Arts that sent me a box of wonderful goodies to work with. So generous of you! And thank you Jennifer McGuire! You're such a dear. :) (She's giving away prizes all week on her blog! Check it out!!)
{Remember This Ingredients}
Paper: PTI kraft, dark chocolate, vintage cream, SU! Patterns-chocolate chip
Stamps: Hero Arts Travel Journal, Dotted Trees; SU! Rough Edges Alphabet
Ink: PTI dark chocolate, SU! old olive
Accessories: SU! top note die, balsa wood (Michael's), SU! natural hemp twine, PTI spring moss topnotch twill ribbon, Marvy LePen
