friendship

So, I am straying from the typical post of what is going on with the baby today. I am going to attempt a post a little more "deep". Most of you reading this know the story of the couple we met on our honeymoon, Josh and Anna. If not, ask us sometime, it is an amazing story. Mike and I have been blessed in our lives to have amazing friends. There is no question about it, we would both tell you, our friends are the best you can ask for. We have always felt that way and always will. We thank God everyday for the amazing people that we have in our lives.

So, when we left for our honeymoon we never would have thought that we would add two more to the list of simply amazing people we have been blessed to cross paths with. We left for our honeymoon with the simple expectation of relaxation and some fun times together. Never would we have guessed that we would meet a couple that would change our lives. We ended up meeting Josh and Anna and spending most of our week with them. With them we had some amazing conversations about life, God, and spirituality. You see, we had no idea, but they were struggling with their life at home, in their community. They were trying to figure out how to be themselves and still fit into the expectation their community had for them. We talked frank, we told them our story of being essentially thrown out of the churches we had grown up in for one decision we had made. We talked of the pain that caused us and the faith we had always had that was in an instant questioned.

Then we told them the story of Janis, our pastor. We told them about how our tears were instantly erased when we met him and started attending his church. We never realized that we would feel so at home and welcome at a church. We had no idea that we would be able to have in depth conversations with our pastor and that he would listen and encourage us to keep digging. Neither of us would have guessed that we would miss church when we couldn't attend a Sunday, we had never experienced that feeling. We have never felt so at home in a church in all of our lives.

I digress though, when we returned from our honeymoon, we kept in touch with our newfound friends. We were introuduced by them to the blogging world. Their blogs told their story, their story of what they were going through and the journey that they were on and how much our friendship had impacted them. Josh has actually been blogging the last two days about this and you can check it out here: http://www.iamjoshbrown.com/blog/ His posts are extremely thought provoking, I would encourage anyone to read them.

So, to Josh and Anna, know that you two have affected us also. We are inspired by your story and your journey. You have allowed us to have many conversations with each other that have made us grow as a couple. We thank God for your friendship and look forward to many years of trips to each other's "worlds".

And to all of our other friends reading, those who have been with us for the long term, we love you with our whole hearts and thank God we have you. Thank you for defining who we are as people.