Marshall and I met for lunch last week.\u00a0 We work in opposite directions from home, so we had to work out a plan to meet somewhere halfway between.\u00a0 We did, and had a wonderful lunch.\u00a0 Turns out, by just driving about 15 minutes, we could spend the next 45 minutes together.\u00a0 It was so worth it.<\/p>\n
As we sat down with our Chick-fil-A sandwich, Marshall said the prayer,\u00a0a\u00a0short prayer, thanking God for the food and places “in the middle” where we could meet to eat together.\u00a0 It was a simple phrase, but something about it rang true.\u00a0 Thank God for places in the middle.\u00a0 Places where we go toward one another and meet.\u00a0\u00a0 It reminded me of the McDonalds in Shepardsville, KY.\u00a0 As we drove home from Ohio this past Thanksgiving, I pointed it out to my adult children.\u00a0\u00a0 It took them a minute, but when I reminded them of the meetings there, they smiled.\u00a0 When Jacque was small and we lived in Nashville, we would meet the grandparents there, eat a hamburger, and hand over a kid for a summer week with Grandma and Grandpa.\u00a0 It was a place in the middle.<\/p>\n
Places in the middle are special.\u00a0 They are the places where we meet others.\u00a0 The places where we meet friends and family.\u00a0 The places where two angry, hurt hearts meet for forgiveness.\u00a0\u00a0 The places where people from opposite directions can come together.\u00a0 Two ends can meet in the middle.\u00a0\u00a0 Unless,\u00a0 one end is God and the other is me.\u00a0 In that case, He came all the way to a manger in Bethlehem.\u00a0 He comes all the way, knowing I could never make it even half way to Him.\u00a0 All I have to do is turn around and He is there.<\/p>\n
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Marshall and I met for lunch last week.\u00a0 We work in opposite directions from home, so we had to work out a plan to meet somewhere halfway between.\u00a0 We did, and had a wonderful lunch.\u00a0 Turns out, by just driving about 15 minutes, we could spend the next 45 minutes together.\u00a0 It was so worth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1435"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1441,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1435\/revisions\/1441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}