A few weeks ago one of my friends from church approached me about being an accountability partner. At first, I really wasn't sure. I didn't even know what that meant. Honestly, I had some pretty negative thoughts about it because of how it was used in my youth group growing up but I knew there was more to it than that. We both prayed about it and I felt like it would be a blessing. It would be something new and different so I was excited. We have been meeting once a week at my house for the past 3 or 4 weeks right after she gets off work. It has been really wonderful, a huge blessing. We pray, talk about our lives and read the bible. Right now we are going through Matthew and I love it. Things that I don't pick up on when reading, she does and vice a versa. There is just something about having one on one time with someone who isn't your spouse. God has shown himself to us and it has been very powerful.
I think it's amazing all the different relationships God shows and gives us. I think especially now that I am older, I have a greater appreciation for those that are in my life. One huge blessing that I received from college and Aggies For Christ in particular is that I learned people are just people. We all want someone to talk to, someone to validate what we believe. That the guy with the funny looking nose and the girl with perfect hair ultimately want the same things in life. When I truly believed this, I found talking to people to be much easier. But I also think an important aspect to that is making yourself uncomfortable. When my friend asked me about being an accountability partner I knew I was going to have to let some of my walls come down. I couldn't put up the "I'm fine, we're fine, everything's fine" facade.
I found this to be true with my small group as well. There are 2 other couples in our group and we meet every week. They also live really close to us and drop by whenever so that if Clint and I have been arguing and they walk up to the door, they know somethings up (and this has happened). They do it on purpose though because we all agreed we wanted to live in community as much as possible. This means it's uncomfortable. We have seen each other super happy and excited and we have seen each other at our worst. But through it all, God has shown himself to us. We are growing and changing. We love each other and through that love, God has blessed us. We all go to different churches as well so one person's beliefs and values tend to be different from others but we all have the most important thing in common so I guess it all works out in the end.
I don't write this to be all (in the words of Cat from 10 Things I Hate About You) "Look at me, Look at me". I still have so much to learn, so much to do, so much to understand. I am messed up and wrong on so many levels. I know I have a huge mountain to climb, but it's good to know that the people around you have their own mountain to climb.
