Skip to main content

Tale of a Former Small Group Skeptic

Am I the only one who found making friends as an adult complicated in ways I never saw coming?  

Am I the only one who searched through college and beyond to find her niche?  A single place where she belonged?  Only to fail again and again?

My story (and Matt's too, for that matter), might not be terribly common.  We belonged to a crew in high school that was diverse and tightly-knit and irreplaceable.  These people became my support group and my best friends and my whole life.  Then college hit, and we scattered across the state and the country and the universe (not really the universe)!  Still, moving into Newman Hall in the fall of 2005, I had high hopes of a new chapter on my own.  Surely in a crowd of nearly 11,000 people I could find my place.  No I couldn't, and don't call me Shirley!  Everything I tried either fizzled or exploded.  At best, I didn't fit in.  At worst, I was being yelled at for missing a bible study.  Side note: if you are ever yelled at for missing a bible study, find a new bible study.  Not every experience was that horrible.  I made new friends in some of these groups; I had some fun.  I grew in my walk with Christ through a new campus ministry.  Each time I would begin to open up, life would come along as it does, and the people I'd opened up to were suddenly absent...or I was busy with a cute guy I had to drive an hour north for every weekend.  Even though I found a few of my closest and most trusted friends at U.S.I., I never found them in a group, and I certainly never found a lasting place in one. 

After college, things didn't get any easier.  In my heart, I dreamed of finding a place where Matt and I both fit in and felt comfortable.  Wouldn't it be amazing to be connect with a group again?  Maybe even meet some more young, married couples like us in our very own city?  Maybe even young, married couples who followed Jesus?  Over time, that thought became a pipe dream in my mind.  I just gave up.  We were not going to make these magical new friends, and most of our oldest and best friends were at least an hour away; some were as many as twelve.  

By the time I accepted the position with our church, I was ready to gather all my far-flung friends and move them into a compound somewhere remote and tropical.  Looking around on one of those first Sunday mornings, it occurred to me that new friendships might be a possibility.  After I had been there several months, our church decided to launch a small-group ministry.  Don't tell anyone, but I was highly skeptical.  Don't repeat this, either (especially, and I repeat especially not to my husband), but occasionally, AND ONLY occasionally, I am wrong.  

Boy, was I wrong.  In a single night with my small group, we've been known to shed tears, have deep theological discussions, laugh till we can't breathe over a conversation about $10.00 Rural King jeans, and experience the occasional streaking through the living room by a preschooler in his tighty-whities.  And that was all just last Wednesday.  

This place with these people is where "Lauren the Director of Children's Ministry" gets to just be Lauren the Person.  Lauren who lets her guard down and laughs too loud and talks too much and cries too easily and eats too many banana muffins.  More than ever before, I am aware that one of the greatest blessings in this life is finding a place where I can be myself.  I walk into that group each week knowing I can be me without fear of judgment or repercussion.  Will I be mocked?  Probably!  Will I be judged?  Never.  What a precious gift to enter a room knowing your words will be held in confidence, your burdens lifted, your joys celebrated, your spirit edified, your heart understood.  

More thoughts on friendship==> To The Ones Who Love Me Through


Comments

Unknown said…
Just saw this..... oh... Love it! <3
Monday, November 12, 2012
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Under My Feet

Last night, Elsie and I met four of my girlfriends for dinner and shopping on Franklin. Somewhere between the server thinking we were at least a decade older than we actually are and our second basket of bread, the topic of the decade picture came up. My mind wandered back to where I was at this time in 2009, and I told them I really wouldn't want to post a picture. In 2009, I was heavy. Physically, mentally...heavy. One month to go but not sure I'd make it out with a degree, panic attacks and sleeping too much and losing my temper and sobbing and zero confidence after being torn down even more...heavy. I was engaged to the love of my life who I'd marry a few months later, but what I tend to remember are the shame and pain and guilt from that time and that situation. I remember the way the symptoms of ADHD and major depression and anxiety all came together in the worst way at a time I needed to be my best. I remember the pain of the criticism. The times spent huddled in t...
2 comments
Read more

Grace, Grief, and a Lost Little LAM

I am overwhelmed, grieving, anxious, forgetful, exhausted, and feeling like I'm coming down with something.  I am facing a loss I can't begin to understand.  I'm walking through it, but I'm not getting anywhere.  It is on my mind every minute of every day, yet it still doesn't seem to ring true.  It can't really be true.  She can't really be gone, not like that.  Not in this tragic, ugly way with no warning.  Not when she was vivacious and healthy.  Not when she was the glue that held our family together.  Not before I had a child for her to hold.  Not before she knitted the most exquisite baby blanket ever made.  Not before our next Broadway date. Not before our next double date.  Not before the next hand of cards.  Black words on a white screen usually have a very powerful effect on me.  Writing something down makes it real to me.  But I have lost one of my best friends, and it still doesn't always feel real. ...
3 comments
Read more

On Waves and Daddies {Father's Day}

There is a reason I love this picture.  It was taken in  New Smyrna Beach, Florida in 1991. I was all of four years old. My father was teaching me a lesson tht has echoed throughout the rest of my life. I remember vividly the way he coaxed me out into the Atlantic, not content to let my worries keep me by the shore. There were forward steps I took myself; there were steps I was carried. Every time a wave came, my daddy would grab me by the hands and lift me straight up and over it, with my legs kicking the entire time, terrified he wouldn't lift me quite high enough to clear the water. Already plagued by a mind perpetually asking, What if? Every wave, every time...me flailing, my daddy saying, Lauren, I won't let you go under.   When I got too scared, he would have to pick me up and just hold me while the waves broke at his knees.  I don't think the story of Jesus calling Peter to walk on water was yet etched into my mind, but this memory will stay foreve...
Post a Comment
Read more