About a month ago, Jen and i were at our church here in Lynchburg. For the past couple of months, Jen and I have started serving in one of the ministries here at Timberlake Baptist Church, the Welcoming Committee. Now I know what you're probably thinking here when I mention the words Welcoming Committee. You probably associate it with some old school Baptist Church in Podunk town that has a couple old ladies saying, hi, how you doing ?? I thought that was going to be the deal when we were offered the opportunity to serve in this ministry in our church, but little did I know that it would actually help grow our marriage in many different ways, which brings me to the title of this blog.
Ever since Jen and I got married over a year and a half ago, there have been, how do I say it........buttons that God has been pushing. For me, it has been God consistently pushing me through Jen to communicate my feelings and even more importantly, what my ideas and plans are for the week in a better manner. There are countless reasons why I think God has been doing this through Jen in my life, but I think the most important reason why is because I think my wife would go certifiably crazy on me if I wasn't communicating regularly with her about what my schedule is looking like for the week and where I see potential times where we can spend quality time together.
Now, on the other hand, with Jen, I'm firmly convinced that God is working through my love for being the social butterfly with other people in the life of my wife. She'll probably tell you how funny it is that I can talk with literally anybody about anything and have a good time doing it, as evidenced by alot of times when we are at church or hanging out with friends, she's constantly joking on me for striking up a conversation with somebody that I know about basketball or the Bible or even what kind of food that they like. It's our ritual when we are at church that I'll go and talk with one of the many friends that we have made there, which always follows with Jennifer saying something to the effect of, "How can you be so comfortable talking with so many different people from completely different walks of life ?"
As I thought more deeply this morning about why I think it's good that I'm a social butterfly in terms of Jen, I kept on hitting the words "Comfort Zone". Every one of us has them, whether they be nursing a warm cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee in the morning, or watching Duke basketball whenever they are on, or even taking a 3 hour nap in the afternoon like somebody is known to do(wink wink, I wonder who that is ?) For Jen, having been married for over a year and a half now to her, I've come to discover that one of Jen's comfort zones gets busted wide open when she's put in a position to meet new people and develop relationships with them. I am not saying that it's a bad thing, it's who she is, and as my wife has taught me it's possible to psycho-analyze pretty much ANYTHING, I think looking at how she spend practically her entire life in one city, going to the same schools, seeing her same friends, going to the same Tuesday Night Bible Study, and seeing the same family day after day, that helped develop in her a love or comfort zone in terms of developing her personality. With me on the other hand, being a military brat my entire life, we moved around alot, and on average, I was starting a new school on a 3 year basis. For matter of survival, i was forced to become the outgoing guy that I am, because otherwise I'd be the quiet dork off in the corner who never made any friends.
When Jen and I got married, those two personalities collided in a variety of ways. As most married couples go through this, there was definately some rough patches along the way as my natural personality of wanting to develop new friendships with people we met up here in Lynchburg started coming out, while Jennifer's preference to SLOWLY ease her way into the scene up here were oftentimes pitted against each other. Now, a year and a half later, it's interesting to me to see how God can take two strong willed people and help them grow in areas that they needed to. If you ask me today, is my wife a social butterfly, I would say probably not, but last night Jen did something that showed me how God can take a person completely out of their comfort zone and after awhile, they can actually start to like it.
What I'm talking about is Jennifer took off last night to go to church for the Tuesday Night Ladies Small Group Bible Study. She's been going for a few months now with a friend of ours, and trust me when i say this, that Bible Study is not your typical Tuesday night bible study. It's filled with women of all age ranges, and it seems to have a level of organization that Jennifer is most clearly not used to. Last night when Jen got home, I was finishing watching a movie and I asked her how it went. She said something that I will never forget as long as I live. She said, "Well, we had a really good time. There's a couple ladies there I look forward to seeing every other week and they are taking more of an interest in me, which is kinda neat."
If you had told me a year and a half ago that Jennifer would be uttering those words to me about developing relationships with women who so clearly are different from her in a variety of ways, i would have been like, "You're CRAZY." However, thinking about it today, it's no different from the path that God takes us on in our walks with Him. Many of our lives have taken twists and turns, and oftentimes in the moment it seems like this is the craziest thing to do, but in the end, God always has good reasons for taking us through those different paths.
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