Life Group Care Story from Emily Shoemaker

by Emily Shoemaker
June 24, 2020

My family and I moved to Findlay from West Virginia over a year ago…in the middle of winter…with an infant. We were physically prepared for the move, but were unaware of how emotionally unprepared we were. As you can imagine, the best of plans with a move can be delayed or thwarted and you want to beg for routine. You crave consistency back into your life. We were leaving routine and consistency in our little West Virginia town and heading north. As we found a place to live, places to work, and a daily routine again, we felt consistency start to form. But we were missing the emotional support of a loving community, a likeness to the friends and family we left behind.

As our roots started to form and reach out into Findlay, we stumbled into the Saturday night service at the North Main campus. We showed up desperately looking for relationships. For like-minded people who we could be shoulder to shoulder during the next season of our lives. A new mama, just like me, found us and walked us through the routine of the evening service. She put our minds at ease which released our hearts to worship. After attending the service, the same mama and new friends invited us to their life group. We were hesitant, but not reluctant. We were hesitant to move through the stages of community with new people, what if we were too much? What if we had too much going on or were in too much of a mess to be supported, or to support them? Once again, our new friends put our minds at ease by holding our hand through all the questions and problems that arrive with juggling a toddler and a regular life group meeting.

With hopeful hearts we started to regularly attend our new Life Group. We started to move through the stages of friendship and community with our new friends by expressing our hearts, learning about scripture, and of course laughing a lot. As the COVID-19 pandemic set in, we were saddened, but understood, when our group had to move to online. Our Life Group leaders still regularly checked on us, but the new consistency was getting rocked a bit. We were impressed how our Life Group leaders still expressed their concern and showed support when everything, and nothing, was going in the world.

Our lives were rocked once again when my father-in-law passed away unexpectedly about a month ago. Our consistency was traumatized, nothing felt like it was ever going to be the same. As our minds were filled with questions, doubts, anxiety, and despair, Christ pulled back the curtain and showed us this small group of people that he had been preparing to support us. The hearts of our life group friends had been prepared to support this small, crazy family from West Virginia during a time of deep need. Even though our world was turned upside down, the consistency of our friendships with our new life group friends is what helped us find hope once again. They provided us with phone calls, texts, food, and prayer. They showed up when other people weren’t. They spoke words directly to our hearts that met needs we didn’t know we had. What a relief to have found friends that were ready to walk shoulder to shoulder with us.

With my father-in-law’s passing, that left a lot of empty roles in our lives. We know that God had been preparing our hearts and our minds for this passing way before we could comprehend it. But how nice to see God fill in some of those empty roles in our lives with our life group friends that he had been preparing. My father-in-law would be ecstatic to see that our new friends have helped fill a piece of our hearts that we didn’t know would need to be filled with his passing.