see far in a snow storm

another delay for school tomorrow due to winter weather in good old Indiana...I saw on the news today that so far in our winter season, we've accumulated a total of 22.6" of snow. yipes. a tad different from my marshy homeland on the east coast of Virginia. still, i am with Tim when I think that if it's going to be THIS cold, it might as well snow.

ya know, that's the ONLY thing I could find that was wrong with Knoxville. i'm not sure if i remember a GOOD snow in all my 5 years of living there. yeah, we had a few random snow days, but only because Sevier County schools were pretty skittish.

Tim and I are going back in a few weeks to rent a cabin with family and celebrate my sister's birthday. it's like we're going to Disney World; we are SO excited! we have plans to reunite with friends we haven't seen in way too long and just enjoy being back home.

i'm not sure if it's the arctic Indiana winter, but we are missing Knoxville more than ever. Tennessee in general brings back pleasant memories for both of us, and we both agreed we felt like it had seemed like home. we fell in love, made life long friends, and made some pretty big life decisions all within the walls of the Smoky Mountains and Vol territory.

i almost typed that i learned who Jesus was in TN as well. but while Tim and I were trudging through the ice and snow to meet his parents for dinner tonight, we discussed how our views of Christ, the Church, and the American Christianity have changed so drastically in the last year that even we were surprised by it. i realized how different i am now. yeah, my life changed drastically in so many ways in TN, but it's here in IN that i feel like i found Jesus. like, the real Jesus. the one who had opinions and feelings. the one who said some things that i never really thought were like him. the one who tells people that if they even so much look back to say goodbye to his mother, he is not fit to be a disciple. the Jesus who wants to restore the people and the Earth that he made to live in unison with each other. the one who expects love. the Jesus that never built a building to be a church.

i'm learning that being the church is SO much simpler than we've created it to be. keyword: we.

gosh. we have a lot of work to do.