Friends

When we first moved to this little isolated town, we left everyone we knew and came to a place where we knew not a soul.  Our first year had some lonely stretches.  But it could have been much worse if it hadn’t been for all the friends and family who made the trip to visit us and our new home. 

Our town is so small that you can get from anywhere to anywhere in five minutes or less.  I am not kidding.  This is so ingrained in our thinking that the little ‘suburb’ communities on the outskirts that are four miles away are called ‘out of town.’  And people living out there consolidate their trips ‘into town’ to save on gas.  Those living into town balk about having to drive ‘all that way’ to visit the out-of-towners.  It is a little silly.  I’m guilty of adopting this mentality myself.  In fact, I would often go to the more expensive grocery store because I didn’t want to drive all the way over to the other one—you know, the one that was 2.5 miles from my house.

I have watched many of my friends find homes out of town, and move right back into town the first chance they got because they were slipping into depressions because of isolation!  I am not talking about one or two people.  In my twelve years here, I have seen it over and over again. 

So, here we are, moving ‘out of town.’  I wondered how it would all play out.  The reactions we have received have been pretty predictable.  Raised eyebrows, open mouths…’Oh!  You’re moving up there? Wow!’  I looked it up: my house is 6.8 miles from the furthest side of town. In city talk, we’re neighbors with that far-away grocery store!  But facts don’t trump impressions, and the general impression among the townies is that we now live in Timbuktu (metaphorically speaking, of course, and not to be confused with the very in-town street.)

But God trumps even impressions, praise be!  Here we have completed our second week in our new place and we have had visitors well over half of our days here.  And this week is scheduled to fullness with friends to warm our hearts and home.  God is so good!  I know it won’t always be like this.  We start back to school on Thursday, and a routine will settle around us.  But, I think I can say with relative confidence that we won’t be horribly isolated.  Our friends are just the best!  We couldn’t ask for more!