Two and Done

We're two and done. Our son and daughter are now a Mister to a Missus and a Missus to a Mister respectively. We recently returned home from our son's wedding last weekend. For me it was a ten day road trip which accommodated my opportunity to officiate a wedding for dear friends. Never have I put so many miles on a rental car. Hertz must love me. Alaska Airlines will likely send me a holiday card.

It was fun to "get out" again and practice my aggressive urban driving skills. It was wonderful to reconnect with friends and family and Soteria Church. It was a joy to be "Dad" instead of wedding officiant, and to have a front row seat. My wife looked like a queen. My daughter and I cried as we watched my wife and son cry happy tears while they danced. My children are blissfully happy. My son-in-law and daughter-in-law are evidences of God's grace. We're now blessed to be step-grandparents to two handsome little men.

And now it's back to normal, though normal has not been normal for us this year.

It's been more than confusing to relocate to Alaska and begin the work of planting a new church in Juneau...all the while lovingly distracted by our summer wedding schedule. I've never spent so much money in my life while being functionally unemployed. I've never before been married to someone employed by a university. And now we have no impending events on the calendar.

Well, we are having some neighbors over for dinner this weekend. We are planning a short trip to Sitka in September. We do have friends with boats we're hoping will invite us along for a cruise on local waters, and friends with airplanes we hope will invite us along for island landings. We do intend to enjoy as much of the summer as this Alaskan summer allows. We do have places in mind yet to be kayaked. I do have a few pounds to shed.

And I'm excited for, motivated toward, and now no longer distracted from continuing the work of making friends, opening our home often, gathering people and forming a church of gospel communities on mission.

And I hope normal is never normal again, impending events or not.