Dear Day After Community Group,
You’re a beast, with your dirty floors, disorganized toys, and mountain of dishes.
Your early morning hours are always filled with the same question,”Why can’t my kids get along?”, until I remember that they were up two hours past bedtime, ate five desserts when I wasn’t looking, and drank too much caffeinated soda. “Ah, yes, hang in there. An early will bedtime will mercifully end this crazy day,” I console myself.
My patience runs short when I am cleaning food off the master bedroom floor and crumbs from the beds, and you sometimes tempt me to be frustrated and put keyless locks on all the doors of our little house.
But, lovely Day After, I wouldn’t trade you for a spick and span house and a gaggle of well-rested kiddos.
You’re a glorious blessing, with your memories of God’s children catching fireflies out back while the adults share love and mercy, openly admitting what is hard about gospel living, and what is precious about our Jesus.
You bring with you the blessing of life, lived in abundance, in these walls of our home. My children learn that this building is not a place of perfection or a showroom to be treated delicately, but a place that opens up and welcomes whoever decides to come.
We know only friends here, some new and some old, some easy going and some strung a bit tighter, some occasionally difficult and some full of grace for even my own weaknesses, and all of us beloved to one another.
Always, the sweetness of sacrifice is offered to me by you, Day After. You remind me that all these earthly things surrounding me, my time spent cleaning and serving, the love that God Himself has poured out to me, is all for a King that I love most of all.
Without you and your messy offerings, I would never fully know that this thing we call community matters. I wouldn’t get to see how disciples are born right here in my living room, and how Jesus can grow in my own heart when I welcome His people into my house.
I am forever grateful to you, Day After Community Group. You rock my world in all the right ways.
Keep the muddy footprints through the kitchen and down the halls coming, friend. Bring me more spilled drinks in the dining room and texts about how awesome last night was from all my fellow group-ers.
Because I can’t get enough of it all, and I know that every bit of it brings Jesus glory.
I am forever, affectionately your friend,
Carrie
