A Real Downer :(

WARNING: If you're feeling down already, you may not want to read this. I am having a great deal of trouble being joyful in all things and struggling with being content in every situation. I am praying to be both of those things, but Satan is really trying hard to rob me of my joy in Christ and of my peace.

I feel very sad right now. It might be because we've lived here over 5 months and have NO FRIENDS. It might be because I miss my friends in our old town. One of my friends, Lindsay, calls us from Garland about every month or so just to check on us. She called us last night just to say that they missed seeing us in church last night. It is upsetting to me that our old friends (who haven't seen us in 5 months) call to check on us, but we don't have any friends who call us here.

It might be that we've visited the same church for several months but have never been invited anywhere. I mean, don't people go out to eat after church here? Do we look like weirdos or something? We are both very very lonely and discouraged. I keep wondering what God will use this for. Is He trying to tell us to look at another church? Is he trying to use this to make us stronger, so that if we do become a part of this church we can encourage other newcomers or help this place become more visitor-friendly. I've never seen anything like what we've witnessed here. Though the church is somewhat large, so was the one we previously attended. I miss Fred and Dottie White, an elder and his wife who took Josh and I under their wing while we were in Dallas. I miss our old friends. Why did we ever leave them???

Last night, I took the kids to church. Josh was sick and stayed home. I sat next to a woman who was older than my parents. She was so sweet and encouraging. I talked to an elder at the church who was super nice. I talked with an older man who makes it a point to come talk with us every week. There are plenty of nice people here. The problem is this.... we cannot seem to connect with anyone who is our age. There are plenty of people our age at the church, we just can't seem to connect with any of them. I suggested to Josh that we invite people over to our house to get to know them, that we be proactive. Who would we invite over since we don't know any of these people? Perhaps we could invite over the couple who is our same height or maybe those who have kids our kids' ages? Maybe we could have a little "mini-lottery" drawing? We could put the names of all of the people between ages 20-35 in a bucket and randomly draw one out each week? We could walk up to them and say, "Congratulations, we don't know you and have never talked to you, but you just won a special prize....dinner with our family!...... Of course we've never talked to each other, but we really need some friends and thought you might like to be one? Sound fun?" Since we've never said 5 words to any of these people, these approaches might not be quite right. I might tweak them a little and see what I can come up with.

I am very discouraged and just want to move back to where we belonged. Josh and I were talking and praying about it last night, trying to come up with an idea of how to handle this problem. He was talking about the people we had met and reflected back on our time at PC in Dallas, how we were warmly greeted by Michael and Kelly Taylor. Kelly wouldn't have let us leave church week after week feeling lonely. We remembered when we came to PC and Michael and Kelly invited us to their home and made sure that we knew that people were going out after church. We miss our old friends. I just want to go back to where our church really felt like a family and a home.

This church is desperately in need of small groups. It is so big, but there is no way to get to know anyone intimately. I dread going to church here, because we don't fit in with the people within a decade of our age. I don't think the people our age are being intentionally exclusive, it is my opinion that they are just busy. That doesn't make it hurt any less, though.

I am just at a loss as to what we should do and where we should go. I don't like feeling so self-absorbed. Poor pitiful us. Nobody will be our friend. But, seriously, a church should definitely be a place where you love and are loved by the people there. I had been warned before our move that finding a new church home would be the hardest thing for us here. I thought maybe that would be because we left a church with a dynamic speaker and music minister. Little did I know that that wouldn't make an iota of difference, but what would be hard was fitting in with the people.

This blog has been a real downer. That is because I am really down. One of my friends was commenting on her blog about feeling "unsettled". That is exactly what I am feeling right now. I am not looking for sympathy from people who read this blog. I do covet your prayers, though. I am feeling "unsettled", but also like I don't want to be settled anymore. I want to take my wagon and "settle" back at our old home. I left my heart there.