Friends that have touched our lives!

We are feeling the second-hand pain of a brother and sister in Christ. Just as we've seen cancer with our friends, Jeff & Kim, we experience the sting of marriage trials as our friends tread through the places we've been in marriage. I'm learning that relationships are learned, guided and always messy. I guess the relationship that we see as natural is not how everyone else experiences it and when your highly vulnerable and open, there is a lot of risk and thus, a lot to loose. I certainly have been hurt before in relationship, but I also feel I have been given the rare gift of true relationship, with many people. My dear friends in Spokane, and my best friend, who is now in the same state as I, just many hours away, have been such a blessing to me.

I truly began to learn some relationship truth's, from my great friend Megan. I learned amazing things through my friendship with Megan, I also learned about hurt, when there was unhealthiness and insecurities on my part, and how loosing can devastate. I also learned about reconciliation and healing past hurts and misunderstandings and continue to consider Megan a dear friend, even though she's many states away.

When I was lonely and wounded, God brought me Angie, a friend who shared the love for youth ministry and The Lord. We were brought together in a bond that began in ministry and led to the deepest relationship I've ever known. My amazing "sisterhood" with Angie began in accountability, Bible study & prayer. We began meeting together every Saturday, about 5 1/2 years ago, giving permission to one-another to ask tough questions, answer them honestly, and admit and pray over each others failures. Accountability partners led to intimacy, which led to a strong bond in Christ and to each other. We began to share regularly the things that women just don't share. Not just the surface anger, but the hurts behind our anger, the vulnerabilities of why we felt so inadequate at times, our failures as wives and mothers and daughters. We devoured books that dealt with God's view of women and how we were meant to care for each other as sister's in Christ. It began to click and God's meaning of True relationship began to be revealed to and through us. Many of the core beliefs that we falsely believed about ourselves would rear their ugly heads and the other one was their to refute it. Leaving Angie when we made the move from Spokane to California was one of the greatest causes of my grief. We have continued to meet on Saturday mornings over the past 9 months, just instead of face to face, we are now, coffee's in hand and on the phone.

I met my sweet friend Michelle, in our home group several years ago. I'm not sure what drew us to her and her husband Patrick, but it was another God ordained friendship. Michelle was hurting from misunderstanding and rejection in relationship and because I knew this pain, we connected. Michelle is a friend who is loyal and sensitive. She was committed to making relationship a priority and our families, though different, became extremely close. She was there to listen to my endless hours of complaining during our wait for our daughter, Grace, adopted from China. In spite of their own fertility struggles, remaining without children of her own, she stood by me and came to the airport to welcome our Grace home. Aunty Shelly as she became known, blessed my heart in many ways, but one that touched me profoundly was when she gave Grace some books from her Hope Chest of precious things she had collected for her own babies. Michelle was and is a precious gift from God.

Jeff & Kim's Story~
I met Jeff just after they returned to Spokane, from Florida. He was a contractor in our church and when our first house needed some updating, he bid and helped us utilize our small budget in this remodel. Since it was a small home, and he was in my kitchen for weeks, it began natural to talk about family and life. I learned he was the father to 5 and an amazing man of God. He was certainly not shy about his opinion about most anything, but even though we seemed so different, we strangely agreed on most things. Jeff introduced us to Dr. Laura, Glenn Beck, "homeowner special tools," owning a boat, camping, snow-mobiling, guns, Craigslist, and became Brian's best friend. Since Jeff & Kim did not have family in Spokane, we began hanging out with their family, which grew over the years, from five to seven children. Our First Thanksgiving, was one of chaos for me, but the norm of their 7 and our 3 kids' requests being shouted from the table became the usual and we shared hundred's of meals with their family over the many years. Kim awed me in her ability to mother 7 children and love her husband so wholly. Many evenings as our husbands spent time snowmobiling or catching a movie, we shared about our lives and hearts as mothers and wives. We commiserated as wives who's husbands were commissioned and spent many weekends, camping and boating together, even the occasional snow-mobiling trip that the wives were invited to. Kim was always the first to offer help with our kids when we had emergencies, no matter how inconvenient or untimely for her. More times than I can count, Kim took our kids (in addition to her 7, many times when Jeff was traveling) and never once showed an ounce of being overwhelmed, put-out, or wanting anything in return.
Then in early October 2008 we got the news that Kim had a lump in her breast. I'm not sure I've even to this date, fully processed the news of this cancer. Kim was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. We left Spokane, about 6 months after her cancer was detected and her scans have been clear so far. Leaving Jeff & Kim was torturous. They were and are our family.

Robbie & Sonja~
After awhile of attending our Spokane church, we noticed a couple who we really admired and knew we'd love to get to know, so we did the obvious thing, we signed up to be in their home group and stocked them! Half kidding, but half true! We did join their home group to get to know them, but we placed ourselves into an environment and opportunity to meet other couples. We did become friends with Robbie and Sonja and over the past 10 years, we have shared a long history and relationship together. Neither of us had kids at that stage of life and so we enjoyed a great deal of couple time, skiing, sharing meals together and discussing our desires to add to our families. Robbie & Sonja shared a common thread with us, in dealing with fertility and disappointment in getting pregnant. And then, one day, before home group, they called and told us they would be announcing that they were pregnant. We rejoiced for them, but wept for ourselves. (Three months later, God blessed us with our first pregnancy, now known as Jonah, age 10!) Sonja was who I called when I was baffled as a new mother, she invited me to a Mom's class and it was her friend that I met who introduced the idea of adopting from China to us. (That later led to Grace!) Robbie was the big brother I never had. He is a FedEx driver and would sometimes need a place to eat lunch over discussing ministry or life. Robbie became a spiritual and relational mentor to me, always being level-headed and wise. He was led into Pastoral Ministry with our church and sternly told me No when my timing to begin a College-age small group was not right. When the time came to launch the College group, Robbie walked and talked me through. We had countless nights of "Hot Wings," salad and Sonja's amazing desserts together, as we had one, then two children, months apart. As a Physical Therapist, medically savvy and doctor connected, Sonja counseled me through many of my kids' needs. She reassured me when I panicked and directed me when I was overwhelmed. Our last night in Spokane, with our stuff loaded and heading on the moving truck, they offered their home and food for us, even though they were out-of-town.

These stories certainly do not conclude our relationship experiences, they are a few of the many, monumental markers and people in our lives that helped create and develop who and what we are. When meeting with an elder at our new church in California, he asked what we thought our gift was. I immediately said, relationship! Do I think we're better at it than most? No. Do We make it a top priority in talk and action? Yes! Do we fail, often and hard? Absolutely! But, our hearts have been touched, so intimately, so deeply, so profoundly by each person, in a way, only they could!