Yes, it was a great weekend. I had not hung out with Margaret much, but we just cannot figure out why! She's such an upbeat, talkative, zany person. It was a great group, the four of us. We spent a majority of our time just talking and catching up and one evening we spent hanging onto Alexis' honest words about marriage... the real, honest, painful and yet beautiful parts of marriage we all agreed for some reason aren't discussed. Alexis has vowed that her life is open for the sharing; if anyone wants to know anything about her faith or marriage or anything, albeit personal, she will try as hard as she can to do so- her vulnerability shows such strength.
It was SO good to just talk! We had some of the best conversation. Alexis, Margo & I all said how much this weekend of girl-talk did for us since we don't have much of it usually (Laurie does girltalk for a living as an intern with Cru). It's so uplifting and cleansing to be honest, ask tough questions, share your insides, and integrate God into it for real. I'm not good at opening up, but spurred on by Margaret & Alexis' vulnerability and openness, I felt no pressure and thus shared myself as well. I am always impressed and jealous of some people's ability to share and open themselves up and invite people in.
Things have changed... but indeed somethings stay the same. We are our good old crazy selves, launching into song or dance or quotage or just ridiculous comments.
But other things seem strange, disconcerting. In my mind Alexis hasn't aged; she's still the off-the-wall, crazy, fiery freshman I danced around a dorm room to "76 Trombones" with five years ago. Alexis and Justin own a beautiful, unique house! They put aside money every month for their children's education to pass on the best gift their parents gave to them. The foresight and responsibility used there is just impressive! Justin and Alexis are such opposites, personality-wise. They are such an interesting, strange, amazing balance of passion and practicality, left and right brains, emotional charge and thought-out patience. It really works well. She is maturing and being shaped, as hard and painful as that can be, especially for someone as fiery and passionate as her.
Margaret has been dating Warren for almost a year now, but already have spectacular communication and just seem to mesh. And they know it, too. Alexis eerily prophesied a couple years ago to Margaret: "Margaret, you and Natalie are the same in that you are beautiful and are a little different and the boys here in Missouri just don't get your kinds. You are both beautiful and intelligent and strong women, but I know you guys are going to end up with someone outside of Missouri after college. You all are going to just have to wait to meet the right one." We both ended up finding guys at Mizzou but they are a different kind and are both on the East coast now. As Margaret said, that Alexis is a sage beyond her years.
Also, I tended to lust after Alexis' job. She works in nonprofit for Nazarene Compassion Ministries International doing PR and media/advertising and communications for this humanitarian organization. Friday she leaves for a week in Africa covering the AIDS/HIV relief the organization is doing there. Sigh! Wowzers! Sigh...
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2 comments:
that sounds like such a great weekend. times like that are so important.
i love what you said about alexis & talking about her marriage & life! i know what you mean in that it's stuff that just doesn't get talked about that much. i love talking about "the real, honest, painful and yet beautiful parts of marriage"...and keith and i are constantly discussing our relationship...but outside of us it usually doesn't happen. i just figure it's because other people don't want to talk about it. but surely people do...?
how do we go about having more times of open, honest, raw, relational conversation? that's something i think about a lot...
laurie's girl-talk thing sounds neat. we had something similar to that in high school. it's just too bad that kind of stuff is limited to students. let's carry it forward into adulthood!
girl-talk weekends for life!?
yes, and i think there are certain positive aspects of college life that are good to be preserved beyond college--like strong community (but other parts are very unrealistic &/or undesirable).
i just think true community is a huge thing that we're missing in our american lives. and often college is the closest we get to experiencing it (outside of marriage). it's almost like people see individualism as maturity. but i don't think that's the way God designed us.
we need to share our lives (like you guys did this past weekend). God created us to need each other; to need community.
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