The friends we hang out with most are the three other couples in our small group. Each of us brings a unique flavor to the group due to our different jobs, family and religious backgrounds, education, world views, and personalities. In our group we have conservatives and moderates (liberals, even?), PC users and Apple users, vegetarians (well, one) and omnivores, athletes and couch potatoes, shy people and outgoing people, parents and couples who might never have kids, lifelong Christians and newer converts, nearly newlyweds and people approaching their 15th anniversary, people from stable families and some from troubled ones, Dr Pepper drinkers and Coke drinkers.

In our ranks are a married pair of cops, a video production and Mac guru, a financial advisor with a bunch of letters after their name, an anatomy teacher, recovering Church of Christ-ers, a craft-y person, a soccer player, a brave soul who teaches Sunday School to preschoolers, a coffee snob, a couple of super-hip people who have owned more iPhones than I’ve owned cars, a certified bomb technician/chiropractor, a stay-at-home mom who paradoxically likes Linkin Park and action movies, an underfunded wine connoisseur, a pair of ambitious home remodelers, and a pair of baseball fans. Somehow we combine all these differences and make a wonderful stew of a group. I am grateful to know each of them.