The Church is Our Family

It was Jesus, who said "Who are my mother and my brothers?" Looking around at those who sat around him, he said, "Behold, my mother and my brothers!" That is how I feel about our church.

It is not that Jesus did not love his biological family, and it is not that we don't love ours dearly. It is because being part of a church means being part of God's family, the body of Christ. Jesus becomes the lowest common denominator even between strangers with the same beliefs. And this is an awesome thing.

Today at church, someone that we barely know gave us a stroller/car seat combo. It is to the point where our house already seems full of baby stuff, long before the baby is even here! The funny thing is someone else (that we barely know) already gave us a car seat - two car seats and we don't even have two cars! And we haven't had to pay a penny for any of it - it was all given to us by people from our church. Nothing was asked for, it was just offered to us. Who says God doesn't provide?

Now all I need is an able-bodied man to come over and help me move a desk and futon out of our spare room (which will become the baby's room) so we can steam clean the carpet and paint. This will help us get the crib, bassinet, changing table, etc out of our living room and into its permanent position. Any takers?

Flashback to about a year ago, when we were looking for a new vehicle, we were looking for something reliable, not too many miles, something with a little horsepower (I think every car should have at least 180 hp.) What we were not looking for was an SUV. Not that SUV's aren't nice, but they are usually out of our price range, so I didn't bother looking. At the car dealership, I was looking at some Toyota's and Honda's, and the sales guy points out a Hyundai Santa Fe in our price range (newer and less miles than the Toyota's and Honda's - and mark my words - Hyundai will be the new Toyota one day soon - get one while they are still cheap!). I drove it and liked it a lot (aside from the color), and the salesman actually said he had another one in maroon coming in soon.

So a few days later we went to check out that one, and not only was it maroon (the color I wanted) but also had leather, heated seats and a V6! I got upset when I looked at the sticker and it was $4,000 more than he said it was...thinking he was pulling a bait and switch on me, but he came out and said, "What can I say? It's over-priced." And he dropped the price $4,000 on the spot. So we ended up paying exactly the amount we wanted to, but got a lot more car for our money! God knew we were having a kid before we did! And I'll tell you - just needing to haul around a stroller is reason enough to have an SUV. Yes, God provides abundantly.