Can you believe we’ve been residents of Philadelphia for a week already? It has been a blur for us. I feel like all we’ve done for the last 7 days is unpack boxes and visit every furniture store in Philadelphia. No, seriously. I have seen every dining table that has ever been made. See, we never bought “real” furniture in Boston. Everything was second hand stuff that we were given or found cheap. But now, we knew that we were going to have to stop playing house, and buy grown up stuff - like chairs that you don’t have to wood-glue together every 3 days. But here’s the problem. Grown up furniture is expensive, and I am cheap. Do you know how much a bedroom set is! I’m still trying to convince Shainu that the air mattress we’re currently sleeping on is much nicer than a real bed.
To make matters worse, Shainu is too nice to just tell me what she wants. So we have the same conversation at every store.
Ajay: Do you see a table you like?
Shainu: Yeah, but I want you to like it too. How about that one?
Ajay: Yes, I like it. I love it. Let’s buy it. Now, which table were you talking about?
Shainu: Come on buddy, that one. Seriously, do you like it?
Ajay: Shainu, I’m a guy. I don’t care how the table looks. As long as you fill it with food, I’m good.
But, I’m happy to say after a week of furniture shopping, we’ve ordered just about everything we need. We were hoping to be settled in by the weekend, but it is going much slower than I thought. Perhaps it was a bit unrealistic to think you could get completely situated in a week. So, hopefully in another week or so, the boxes will be cleared away and our home will be fully functional. We’ll see.
In the middle of all this, it has been sweet to hang out with different folks from our team who have been praying about being a part of launching 7 Mile Road. There are four couples in Philadelphia, and we’ve gotten to at least see everyone. We’re hopeful to be able to hang out more in the coming weeks.
Tomorrow will be a much desired day of rest. Shainu and I have been talking a lot about the Sabbath and how sweet it is that God designed a day of rest for His people. The people of Israel were weekly called to trust the Lord and to rest. I imagine there was a strong temptation to work. How could you survive and feed your family, if every week you were setting aside a day to rest? Yet the Lord’s people would have to trust that He would provide their daily bread, even if once a week, they weren’t out getting it. In the New Covenant, we have been invited to enter God’s rest everyday through Christ. But it is still sweet that we get to set apart a day as uniquely unto the Lord.
So tomorrow, we’re going to Liberti church in the morning and then ReaLife church in the evening. We’ll sing, and pray, and hear God’s word, and enjoy the Lord and His people, resting in the finished work of Christ. And all the boxes of our stuff that are unopened in the living room, will remain unopened.
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