It was worth it

Today was our neighborhood cookout at our house. We worked pretty hard this week to prepare for it but we didn't prepare for rain and what did we get? Rain. Oh well, at the last minute we moved the party from the front lawn to the back porch and inside and made do.

Today was exhausting, but so worth it. The introductions, conversations, smiles and laughs flying about the crowd were fantastic. There wasn't a person who came that didn't say, "We are SO glad you did this. Thank you." And we were just as thankful that they came because that was the point of it - to get people together to meet, converse and become something other than anonymous to one another.

It's easy to list the ways that community is hard but what you gain from it is immeasurable.