Friday Night Dinners

Last Friday Jer headed down to Fairbault to meet with David Brown about the STORM Faith Community church plant. We were planning to rendezvous in Burnsville at 7 for a dinner date with Mike and Bette Poukey (two of the most wonderful people at Faith) and the new Spiritual Formations pastor and his cute wife, Mike and Erica Lotzer. Running on 'Berg Time' , Jer got out of Fairbault late (big news, to be blogged about later) and headed over to visit with one of our students who had recently undergone brain surgery.

While Jer was busy doing that, I met with one of our other students who is struggling through some other stuff right now... we had a great coffee date, where I got to speak truth to and pray for this adorable student. Then I buzzed off to get gas and buy flowers for the Poukey's while chatting with another leader on the phone to keep her in the loop on prayer requests, etc. And of course, when it was time for dinner, neither Jer nor I had printed out the address or directions, and Jer left Andrew's late so I was sitting in the church parking lot waiting for him at the time we were supposed to be arriving. And I was feeling guilty (I've decided I hate being late for fun things like dinner parties... but don't mind being late for boring things like the dentist).

None of that mattered when we finally found our way, though. Bette and Mike had made yummy homemade pasta for dinner and the six of us got to just sit around the table and chat. As the evening wore on, we moved to the living room for some more conversation, coffee, and gingerbread. There was a fire roaring... with romance crystals providing some funny entertainment, too.

It was almost the perfect night to just 'be'.

I realized while we talked and Erica and Mike shared about how excited they are to start 'putting down roots' after years of moving from place to place... is that I don't get to anymore. I don't get to establish the roots that were just beginning to dig in. It's not like we had made a huge effort in the last two and a half years to create intentional community, but it happened anyway. And now I have to let it go. I'm mourning for the possibility of what could have been and what was just starting to become... no more impromptu dinner invitations in the hallway, no more visits to chat with our kids just because.

Someone else gets to do that, and it's not me. And I hate that.