Saying Goodbye to Friends

Steven and I love living in St. Louis. We love the fun activities/events St. Louis has to offer, we love having our family close by to visit and we love our dear friends who make life full of love, honesty and laughter. Over the past few years some of our dear friends have moved away. This has been hard. First, it was Christi & Doug who moved to Arizona. Christi had been my friend from 7th grade! Then Megan & Scott moved to Tennessee. Again, hard to see them go. This summer we have had to say goodbye to two sets of dear friends. First, we said goodbye to Leah and Todd who moved to Dallas in June. Leah is my dear friend from College and part of the group of prayer/accountability friends who helped me make it through some difficult years. Todd was the friend who accepted Steven instantly and connected with him in so many ways. I think they both have the most compassionate heart I have ever seen. Leah and Todd's son, Eli, was also Preston's buddy and he misses him a lot. Now, in less than 2 weeks, our dear friends Drew and Lindsey are moving to Maryland. We met them 2 years ago in Spain (on a MTW Missions trip) and bonded instantly with our personalities, interests and life experiences. OK, I thought Steven and Todd were similar...Steven and Drew are like brothers.

While all our friends are moving to new places and we are excited to see where life and the Lord take them, we still miss our face to face time with them. We miss sharing together, praying together, being silly together, crying together, etc... I still don't know what to do this Halloween because Leah and Todd always had the party at their house. I am going to miss Drew making me laugh at SLYnet meetings. I still miss having Christi & Megan around to talk about life face to face at Einsteins.

OK, I guess this blog post is just a way for me to process all the change going on at the moment and to let my dear friends know how much I love them even if I don't get to see them on a regular basis. I am also SO thankful for the friends I still have who live in St. Louis. I have Emily, Carolyn, Mollie, and others. I need to do a better job of connecting with these ladies who do live in St. Louis. Steven also had friends like Todd D, Josh and Eric. We are still very blessed. Hey, even though some friends have moved away, I am also thankful that these friends now live in cool and exciting places and have asked us to come and visit them. We are going to take Drew and Lindsey up on their offer to come to Maryland next summer. I have never been to Maryland.

Bottom line, friends are important. I am thankful for such great friends and long for the day when we can all live together in the same place and have endless time to be together :)