WEDNESDAY NIGHT LIVE

WEDNESDAY NIGHT LIVE

WEDNESDAY NIGHT LIVE.jpg

You can’t make this stuff up.

Wednesday- March 8th

4:15 p.m.  I pulled in my driveway after work feeling exhausted, but I was instantly cheered by the sight of my daughter running in the yard with our dogs and three friends from church.

4:20 p.m. I greeted my husband and my friend who was there to prepare for worship practice and youth group. After a few minutes of small talk, I told my youngest daughter get ready for soccer, and I changed to go for a run.

4:35 p.m. My other two children had just arrived home from school, and I was saying hello and goodbye. I was just about to go out the door when our landlord arrived to give me a new lease to sign for another year.

4:50 p.m. Annalyn and I rushed off to soccer practice, where I took the opportunity to run around the school’s neighborhood. (4.25 miles…first time over three miles in a very long time!)

6:00 p.m. As soon as practice ended, we hurried home to try to squeeze in a quick shower before life group.

Here is the thing… My home hosts the worship practice and the youth group.

6:10 p.m.– I arrived to house full of team members’ children and youth arriving early on the main floor and a worship team in the basement. My husband had already gone to the neighbor’s house where we have life group in order to be there on time.

I couldn’t shower yet because I saw a counter that needed to be wiped down, I had young people talking to me, and the pizza delivery person had arrived to drop off the food for youth. I wiped the counters, took the pizza and soda in, and noticed how our street was partially blocked by vehicles of our team members.

6:15 p.m. I quickly ran downstairs to ask the worship team to all park in our driveway next week. I got the interns keys so we could make room for some cars to pull in and out of our drive during drop off and pick up this week.

6:20 p.m. I gave the intern’s beautiful girlfriend the car keys and asked her to move his car up, so I could also move my car up.

His car is… ummmmm… well loved…. old…. let’s face it… His car is crap (I’m sure it has no correlation to his lack of a salary from us). His sweet girlfriend couldn’t get in without going through the passenger door first. Then it wouldn’t start. When it finally started, she couldn’t get it to go forward. It rolled backwards… into our front bumper.

I laughed and tried to assure her that it was completely fine.

6:30 p.m. (Official start time of Life Group) I still smelled from my run. I  realized I forgot to make sure Annalyn actually got in the shower instead of getting sucked into the activity of the house. I ran back into the house- leaving our intern’s girl to try to figure out the car thing- and told Anna she had five minutes to shower.

I had five minutes to shower!

6:40 p.m.- I didn’t have time or energy to get pretty. Sweatpants, sweatshirt, wet hair, no make-up, and no jewelry… Life group, here we come.

6: 45 p.m.– Dinner was delicious. Jon and other life group members are great cooks. We had chicken tikka masala, Mongolian Chicken, homemade egg rolls, and tasty chocolate filled cookies paired with a few Chinese restaurant purchases (brought by people after my own culinary heart… or schedule). These are important details, mainly because I love food.

7:15 p.m. We got into the curriculum, which Jon had written using voice to text while preparing our chicken tikka masala. The discussion was great.

7:50 p.m.– Since I was leading the discussion for the night, I looked ahead while Jon was adding to something that someone had just said. In my head, I read, “What attraction horses our lives?” I just couldn’t help but laugh out loud in the middle of Jon talking. Voice. To. Text. Time to pray…AMEN

8:00 p.m.– We said goodnight to all the life group members and stuck around to talk with our neighbors as we waited for our own home to empty out. Our gracious friends allowed us to relax with them.

8:45 p.m.– At the end of the night, we came back to a home with only one or two stragglers from the evening’s events to say goodnight to. We sent the kiddos upstairs to get ready for bed and followed them up shortly for hugs and prayers.

That is when it occurred to me that this is not normal for everyone, but the organized chaos is, in many ways, our rhythm and routine. It is laughter, exhaustion, good food, friends, bumped cars, real conversations, and people helping each other to grow.

I am glad I don’t have to make this up.

 

 

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