West Cocoa Chat

We arrived back in beautiful and humid Florida from our visit with the England’s in SoCal around 4pm yesterday. In fact we were home in such a timely that we had enough time to make it to our mid-week Bible Study. I even had enough time to meet with a “recently” disgruntled member of our church. I thought our meeting was productive and we parted in prayer and with hugs.

I wanted to thank Greg and Jan for allowing us to be part of their lives. Over the years our 2 families have taken numerous vacations together. My son Steven thinks of Greg’s “children” as his cousins. The Long Beach Church feels like a second church home to me. But this visit was special.

We witnessed and participated in the wedding of Greg’s son Joshua to Heather. The wedding itself was actually “fun” which isn’t a term I usually use when describing weddings. Greg and Jan also opened up their home to our family and our good friends, the Cox’s, as well. That brought their grand total up to 10 sharing their living space and I don’t care how big or small your home is, that is quite a number to house.

I’m also thankful (believe it or not Greg) to Greg for sharing his guitars and his love of playing them (often referred to as “the sickness”) with my son Steven. Steven missed not being able to hang out with Josh (he was gone on a silly little thing called his “honeymoon”) but was more than comforted by the trips to the Guitar Center and the personal lessons Greg gave Steven on becoming a better guitar player.

Greg made a statement to Steven that is stuck in my mind today. He told Steven that the only way you get better at playing the guitar is by hanging out and playing with people that are better than you. I think that holds true for our spiritual walk as well. I’ve often heard people say that I don’t need to go to church because I can commune with God on my own.

I think of hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park or Yosemite and I know that I’ve felt close to God when I’m walking among his beauty. But I don’t think the experience helped me to be a better person to my fellow man or to react more like Jesus in “un-Jesus type of situations.” As the song says, “People Need the Lord” but we need each other as well.