Getting together with Those Girls!

What a wonderful blessing it is to have friends that you say anything to, never get tired of and count on at all times. God has truly blessed me with 4 such friends. When I started college in 1991, I quickly found myself falling in love with a group of girls that have changed my life. Our bond is deep because we know each other so well and we all serve the same God. Though our views on organic vs non-organic and homeschool vs school and raising our own chickens vs buying eggs at the store may be different--we have one major thing in common. We desire to love and respect our husbands and submit to them in Godly reverence and we desire to raise our children to know who God is and what He has done for them and to one day accept Jesus as their own personal Savior.

From left to right: Julie, Jenny, Jill, Kelly and me.

This past weekend, I was able to get together with these 4 dear friends. We all graduated from Covenant College about 15 years ago and so we thought it would be fitting to stay at the inn on the CC campus and have our own little reunion. For 10 years we have been getting together as married women. We leave our husbands and children behind (except for an occasional baby that needs to come with Mommy) and spent a weekend together. Depending on where everyone is living at the time, we have gathered in different places: several times in TN, twice in NC, once in AL and this time in North Georgia.

It was a beautiful weekend. We meet up at 1:30 on Friday afternoon (I had very little time to get ready to go after getting Isaiah's hand x-rayed and casted that morning) and had lunch. Then we spent some time on CC campus, ran into a few friends that still work there and went to the inn. We sat around and talked until almost 8pm and then went to dinner downtown.

When we got back we talked until after midnight and went to bed.

The next morning we took a slow pace and got out the door by noon. We stopped by Starbucks and Rock City on the way down the mountain and then off to lunch. We had lunch and shopped. Finally when we ran out of energy to shop we went down town to the park and sat under a tree and talked for several more hours. Then we found a place to eat dinner, got some ice cream and went back to the inn. At the inn we talked some more and played Apples to Apples.

The next morning we got up and went to the 11:00 service at Lookout Mountain Presbyterian Church. It was fun and we saw a lot of people that we haven't seen in a while. We then went up to the college and took a few pictures on campus. Our final stop was lunch. We took our time and enjoyed some great conversation over a meal. We parted ways around 3:00.

So 50 hours of wonderful fun and conversation. We laughed and enjoyed learning from each other. We shared our struggles and frustrations and we empathized with each others woes. God is so good. For 5 moms of 19 kids (and one on the way), it is glorious to not have to feed someone dinner, change a diaper, break up a fight, enforce discipline, push a stroller wherever you go, and wonder if you will make in back in time for a nap or bedtime. Just to talk and not be interrupted was a blessing. But to do all that with very dear, precious friends was even better.

I am very grateful to my husband who willingly let me go even though I was leaving him with a sick baby and a 6 year old with a broken arm. And I am grateful to my sister-in-law who sent her daughter, Sara, to come from college (2.5 hours away) for the weekend to help Jon. Thank you Sara for the back-up!