If You're Happy and You Know it...

I have had the best weekend so far! God has been so good to us.

When we first moved here, we knew that one of our hardships would be finding good Christian "couple" friends our age. Since we moved to St. Louis in May of 2011, we began praying (and I began praying fervently) for God to bring us to such friends.

Enter December, 2011.  7 months after I began praying for God to bring us friends.  Steven and I went out on a Christmas date at a Hibachi Japanese Steakhouse... one of those where you sit with 8 of your closest friends, or in our case, 8 total strangers.  They were in a group all together and then there was Steven and I.  They were nice to us but we didn't really converse much until at the end of the dinner, one of the men jokingly told the waiter to give the check "to the pastor".  Come to find out, there was a couple in that group (Steve and Cassie) that was a youth pastor and his wife!  We got to talking to them a bit and exchanged numbers.  They invited us to their home a few weeks later for dinner and games, and ever since then we have gotten together at least once a month for game night.  We love hanging out with them and exchanging stories and ideas from our youth groups.  Also it is nice to have someone to talk to who really gets what it is like to be a minister and his wife!  It's just so amazing to me how God brought us to one another at a Hibachi steak house.

While we were so grateful for our 2 friends, they live 30 minutes away and well, 2 friends really isn't all that many.  I continued to pray for God to bring us more couple-friends with a love for Jesus like we have.  In March or so, I noticed that Beth and Tyler, a couple I knew in college, were moving to Chesterfield and would be away from their family and friends like we are.  I kept tabs on them through Beth's blog and saw that we have a lot in common in our interests, ways of viewing life/relationships, and unfortunately, in our longing for the companionship that we had with our friends and family at home.  I invited them over for dinner, but they were so busy that the first time we were able to get together was last night!

We had a great night with them.  It is so nice to have friends that are in a similar spot in life right now who "get it"!  And I love that these friendships were provided for us by God and through Him working in our lives.  I hope that we are friends for many years!

I love that God cares about and provides the longings of my heart.   Yay friends!  :)