Throwback Thursday #35: Small Group Family

“Even though we've changed and we're all finding our own place in the world, we all know that when the tears fall or the smile spreads across our face, we'll come to each other because no matter where this crazy world takes us, nothing will ever change so much to the point where we're not all still friends.” ~Unknown

Several years ago, while I was going to school at OSU, I attended a great non-denominational church, Sunnybrook Christian Church. Shortly after I started going there, the church began a study of Rick Warren's book, 40 Days of Purpose. As part of this study, the church set up several small groups. College Roomie and I were assigned to a hodge-podge group of sorts. Conventional wisdom in chruches probably tries to assign people to these groups by age, place in life, marital status, etc. Well, our group broke any type of definition. The members were: three senior citizens---one man and his wife....he operated their ranch and she worked at the extension office, and one widowed friend of theirs who was the principal of the church school; a young married couple in their twenties with no children; a second young couple with a baby on the way; college roomie, and me. Probably had the church been paying attention, they would not have gone with this grouping. But I'm glad they weren't, because I couldn't have hoped for one better!
Our 40 days quickly ended, but the group stayed in tact, meeting once a month, every month, to this day. And we've seen a lot of changes in the last 6 years. We've added a total of four new babies, a new great grand child, celebrated one couple's 60th wedding anniversary, celebrated two graduations, seen two retirements, watched countless moves, and our fair share of hard times including deaths and divorces of people in our families and lives. Through it all, the group remained in tact.
To this day, this group of people still cares about and inspires each other. I know that these people are always there for me, whether I need prayers or advice or just some encouragement as I try to live a life of faith. I think being able to see what faith looks like not just in my peers, but in people at all different stages in their lives has been invaluable to me. My small group family gave me that. Although I am no longer attending the meeting once a month, I stay in touch by email and I always try to see everyone when I am back in Stillwater. Last weekend, the young couple who had no children when we began happened to be here in town. As you can see, they added to the baby total! Our small group family may not look like most others, but we bonded unlike many others as well. I could not be happier to have these people in my life, and I am grateful every day that God worked his magic to bring us together. I truly believe they have helped make me a better person.