This is my "front door".
Coming "home" from church on a Sunday no longer includes the smell of soup in a crock-pot, or a little doggy begging for attention after being alone for sooooo looonnnngg (or so she likes us to think). It doesn't include dinner together and then family night, where we all gather and share something from God's Word along with stories of the week past and plans and prayers for the week to come. It also doesn't include worrying about a test I have to take the next day in Czech...well, because I'm not taking any exams in Czech anymore.
Sundays don't include mountains or warming up by the fireplace or country roads and stopping at our local grocery store in town and probably seeing one or two friends there who are picking up last things for their family meals too.
But you know what Sundays at Moody do include?
Being picked up by Caleb and Haley and driving out to Wheaton to our dear church.
Getting to hold babies in the nursery and love on them (in English too!) so their parents can sit in church. Even though it's "serving", I feel like I'm the one being served by those little ones as they just love freely, play wholeheartedly and look at the world with such bright-eyed wonder.
And that was just the start of my day.
Yes, Sundays do sometimes include loneliness. I've had many a Sunday that turned into homework-alone days, and those are hard. Often I end up eating a sweet potato for dinner in my room because the cafeteria doesn't serve meals on Sunday evenings and I don't feel like going out anywhere. Mostly, campus is quiet on Sundays and people are scattered throughout the city at churches in the mornings and coffee shops in the afternoons. It can get lonely.
But there are Sundays like today that, albeit different from home, are full of life. Kid time in the nursery, lunch and coffee time with Caleb and Haley, cooking time in the afternoon (I made soup for the floor tonight). We had a Spring Floor-Family Dinner tonight and gathered in our lounge to eat soup, cornbread and kale salad. It was wonderful laughing together and sharing Spring Break plans, then praying for each other. As soon as dinner was over, there were cookies and we read a few stories from random books. Sweet and hilarious at the same time.
So, Sundays can get me into a funk. They can be stressful and not at all what you would expect from this day. They can be lonely and weird and they can make me homesick. But they can also be refreshing, and good.
Coming "home" from church on a Sunday no longer includes the smell of soup in a crock-pot, or a little doggy begging for attention after being alone for sooooo looonnnngg (or so she likes us to think). It doesn't include dinner together and then family night, where we all gather and share something from God's Word along with stories of the week past and plans and prayers for the week to come. It also doesn't include worrying about a test I have to take the next day in Czech...well, because I'm not taking any exams in Czech anymore.
Sundays don't include mountains or warming up by the fireplace or country roads and stopping at our local grocery store in town and probably seeing one or two friends there who are picking up last things for their family meals too.
But you know what Sundays at Moody do include?
Being picked up by Caleb and Haley and driving out to Wheaton to our dear church.
Getting to hold babies in the nursery and love on them (in English too!) so their parents can sit in church. Even though it's "serving", I feel like I'm the one being served by those little ones as they just love freely, play wholeheartedly and look at the world with such bright-eyed wonder.
And that was just the start of my day.
Yes, Sundays do sometimes include loneliness. I've had many a Sunday that turned into homework-alone days, and those are hard. Often I end up eating a sweet potato for dinner in my room because the cafeteria doesn't serve meals on Sunday evenings and I don't feel like going out anywhere. Mostly, campus is quiet on Sundays and people are scattered throughout the city at churches in the mornings and coffee shops in the afternoons. It can get lonely.
But there are Sundays like today that, albeit different from home, are full of life. Kid time in the nursery, lunch and coffee time with Caleb and Haley, cooking time in the afternoon (I made soup for the floor tonight). We had a Spring Floor-Family Dinner tonight and gathered in our lounge to eat soup, cornbread and kale salad. It was wonderful laughing together and sharing Spring Break plans, then praying for each other. As soon as dinner was over, there were cookies and we read a few stories from random books. Sweet and hilarious at the same time.
So, Sundays can get me into a funk. They can be stressful and not at all what you would expect from this day. They can be lonely and weird and they can make me homesick. But they can also be refreshing, and good.
This is really a precious post. I'm glad you wrote it. Someday, when life is very different, you'll be able to look back and remember what this time is like, the ups and the downs of it. Of course as a mom I want to rescue you from those hard Sundays! But I also know that God is forming who you are in the midst of them...so I wouldn't want to get in his way of that beautiful work. Still, I know it's hard. I'm glad you get a little break this next week...and that you'll come home for some of the summer. He's good to give you other things to care for all your needs!
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