The Fortune Cookie Said it All....

Some dear friends of ours are back from England - after a year's absence from the Fort. This man married me to my beloved Charlie Brown - very dear friends, indeed.

Wednesday night, they caused an excited eruption of cheering, applause and a chorus of, "We've MISSED YOU's," by showing up on the sly to our church's Wednesday Family Night. After the family activity, we talked at length about the past year's happenings, both here and there, with intonations wildly fluctuating, percussive laughter, and manic speeds, trying to get it all caught up at once....until,

"Mommy," big yawn, "I not tired." Punkinhead's valiant effort at discreetly telling us, "You talk too much," was much more transparent to us than it was to him.

At which, I sought a way to continue this mad dash to catching up:

"I know you've got million things to do - but we'd love to hear more - lunch on Sunday?"

Fast forward to today. What a lovely day - more on the specifics of this memorable Lord's day later.

Wednesday night seemed to repeat itself after church this morning - which was to be expected, eh? Still, my tummy grumbled furiously as the extended reunion played on. :) Eventually, we closed the doors of the church, and headed to the restaurant.

On the way, I approached Charlie Brown with a stirring I've felt ever growing this past year:

Honey, you know that our marriage has grown considerably in the past two years, but even more so this year. You know how awesome that is to me, right? Know how Elder X said today that they were meeting with various ministers/deacons and wanted to get concrete ideas of where our church was going? They mentioned missions, and the teens, and the youth - but hon, they forgot a group that's been hit hard this year: the marrieds (note, I removed the "young" because it's so generic and limiting!).

Yeah, I caught that too.

Well, I think it's because the people who were interested in that have burnt out, or have been dealing with their own issues - and in the meantime, Satan's been at work. Honey, I think we should propose to the elders that we can and will step up to the plate by leading the marrieds ministry. We've got to not only feed the new people what they need, but help grow people past what they're getting now - and above all protect the work of Jesus in our body!

Amen - well sorta, he didn't say those words but he did quietly agree.

In my tend-to-discount-positivity-if-it's-anything-less-than-glowing-acceptance fashion, I let it sit for awhile.

Later at lunch, which was the ever yummy Hunan, we opened our fortune cookies, and read them aloud. Trainer girlfriend had a funny one, b/c she always says this to her sons: "After every downhill there is an uphill." Charlie Brown had a really dumb "fortune," as it was more a command - "Relax and have fun." Who writes these anyway??? They are often comical, if not plain common sensical - where's the fortune in that?

When we got to mine, "Present your best ideas today to an eager and welcoming audience," I was met with an expectant, "well?" Before I could respond, Charlie Brown did.

"She's already done that today - tell them what you told me in the car."

Really?!? Really, you want to do this enough to tell people who will hold us accountable to it??!?

It felt akin to the way I felt when he asked me when we were going to make LMNOB a sibling. A commitment like this gives way to a new life - and I'm almost teary-eyed sitting here reliving that moment, and pondering the possibility of creating a life-saving ministry with my two greatest loves: the Lord and my husband.

Upon asking him that with my eyes, and seeing the subsequent nod - I repeated to our couple friends what I'd told him in the car.

Next? A proposal to the elders I suppose. Keep us in your prayers - and bind Satan from robbing any joy - yours, mine, theirs in the church. He's taken more than his fair share already.