Every Sunday between 4:45 and 5 pm, I get into my car and head a few miles south and west of my house. There's a living room on Potomac Street that fills up each Sunday night with about fifteen people, ranging in age from three months to over sixty...and for those few hours each week, it's the most loving place in Abilene. Or possibly the world.

We talk about the Bible; we talk about our weeks; we talk about food and pets and our families and tell funny stories. We pray - for each other and for those we love, and for our world. We share communion (homemade flaky bread, and grape juice in Dixie cups). Sometimes we sing.

It's simple, really: a gathering of family, with hugs and lots of "I love you's" passed around every week. Two little blonde-haired girls whose smiles light up my life. Their mother, whose brave unflinching hope in the face of cancer makes me wish I were more like her. A trio of high school girls who love to rub each other's shoulders and play with each other's hair. Baby Ethan Fuqua, who spends at least part of each meeting lying on a quilt in the middle of the floor. Several married couples who model the unselfish love of Christ, in the way they treat each other and everybody else. (I feel like I've acquired four or five new sets of parents. And yet I'm their younger sister too. It's amazing.)

It's simple, yes...and yet it's one of the most nourishing parts of my week. Not only in the physical meal we share, but in the deep heart fellowship that happens when we're together. No wonder it's called Life Team.