Mommy...Daddy...Where are you going?

It's me, Maggie's daddy again. I know, posting back to back days. No, the rapture is not coming (at least to the best of my knowledge), but I had to post on Awesome thing #2 today. This one is going to blow your mind! It involves our Home Group and Vegas, quite a strange combination. For those of you who do not know, a Home Group is group of people who gather together in homes, on a regular basis, to eat, hang out, grow together in Christ and pray for one another. This happens to be near and dear to me b/c it is the area where God has placed me in full time ministry at NewSpring Church. Well, that is the text book definition. In real life, personally, our HG is the people (outside of our families) who have been the closest to us through the toughest time in our lives over the past year. They have been the only outlet (outside of family) where Jennifer has felt comfortable sharing about the loss of her Mama (Grandma Denise, the namesake of little Mag's middle name) over the last year. We get together every Thursday night, ship the Maggie to Auntie Sarah's, and have a great time. We are pretty much close as family now. The closeness, intimacy and friendship of our group is certainly uncommon, I wish I could bottle it up, write a book about it and give it to all the churches across our country and title it "this is what is SUPPOSED to happen in a Home Group". Well, that would give us the corner of the market on how to do Small Groups and make me a guru, which I'm not. Actually I can take no credit, it is all God how we have come together with these folks and as much as I'd like to be able to explain it, or replicate it, I simply can't, other than saying it's just been a God thing. Well, where am I going with all this? A week ago today, we were meeting at the Waters' house at night. Here is where the legend begins...

Lately, our group has sort of stepped back study wise to work on building our relationships with each other. We hang out together, eat together, share what's been going on and then the girls go up on the rooftop of the Waters' awesome downtown loft (to talk about girl stuff) and the boys break out the card table and play cards. It's actually quite fun, and I think we have grown closer together as a result. Well, 2 months ago, Jeff polled the group to see whose been to Vegas. Very few had. So, being the go getter he is, he started planning, and before you knew it, the Waters, Browns, Huckabys and Sentells were in. Jennifer and I talked about it and were like "DANG, that would be so much FUN, but it's just not possible". One of the most important things Mama Jennifer and I have ever agreed on is how important it is for her to stay home. Much like I have a call on my life to be in full time Ministry, she has a call on her life to be a full time mama and we're willing to do whatever it takes to make that work. We wouldn't trade Jennifer being able to stay home with Maggie for anything in the world. With that being said, there are certain sacrifices that need to be made, and sometimes they hurt. This was one of those situations, it was just impossible (so we thought). So back to last Thursday. At the end of the evening, Jennifer comes downstairs with puppy dog eyes. Jeff begins to go through the Vegas Itinerary with the gang and she says to me, "we need to have a conference". Hmmm, right then, right there, weird I thought? Well, we go around the corner to talk and she says with tears gently coming out of her eyes "I REALLY WANT TO GO". Talk about heart breaking. Nothing makes you feel smaller as a husband than not being able to make your wife happy. A couple things you gotta understand, in 2 years of marriage, my wife has never played the "cry card" so I knew how much this meant to her. Also, this wasn't about Vegas, it could have been Butte, Montana, what was important to her was being able to hang out and spend time with the girls she loves so much b/c of how close they have gotten over the past year. Also, it was sad b/c the Brown's are moving to Florence in the beginning of July and this will be one of the last opportunities to do something like this with them for a while. So, obviously there was nothing I could do then and there, so we agreed to talk about it and went back out to face the group. We told them we were going to talk about it (which honestly was about all we could do, b/c there was no way we could make it happen on our own) and all the girls gave me the "you better do something look" as we walked out the door. We went by Auntie Sarah's with tears steady streaming from Mama Jennifer, scooped up our Mag and headed home. This was a late night as we rocked Mag together in the nursery at 11:45pm. We were talking, and I knew how much it meant to Jennifer, so I started talking crazy. We began talking about the ever famous Bush "stimulus check" we received, which was already spent on paper allotted to things like car repairs, house repairs, our Christmas vacation fund and several other necessity type items. This is crazy talk for me, b/c anyone who knows me knows I'm "tighter than bark on a tree". I'm a natural tight wad and being a one income family now has taken that to almost extreme levels. We are "living like no one else now, so later on we can live like no one else" (thanks Dave Ramsey and Joe Sangl). So, after rocking Mag for about 20 min, Jennifer finally said "it's ok, it just can't be done. I'm sad, but it's ok". Part of me was proud, in that she wasn't willing to sacrifice the necessities for a great time (which is saying something coming from a former free spirit) and part of me was heart broken knowing how disappointed my wife was. At that precise moment, my phone rings. It's Pudge (from our HG). He says "Hey man, I got 3 questions for you". Me, "ok, shoot". Pudge, "If something crazy happened and you could go to Vegas, could y'all find someone to watch Maggie"? Tom, "I think". Pudge, "Would you be able to get the time off"? Tom, "probably". Pudge, "3rd, could y'all come up with the spending $"? Tom, "I think". Pudge, "ok, well we've (Huckabys, Browns, Sentells and Waters) decided to pay for your air fare and hotel." Tom, dumbfounded, "You're kidding". Pudge, "No! We want to do this for you as a gift b/c we love y'all." Please understand this too, this sacrifice for them was huge. We are all young married couples and the $ to cover this was a lot. This wasn't just chump change and their generosity has made a huge impact on our lives. I was floored. I hurried to get off the phone to run back to the nursery and tell Jennifer. I can't remember seeing her that happy. She cried again and I was so happy to see her that happy. So, Friday we got all the questions answered, worked out the details and next week this time the Haren's will be in Vegas completely due in part to God surrounding us with such amazing people in our HG. We truly could never thank y'all enough....