To the Ones who Love Me Through-A Letter of Thanks

     I haven't written lately because sometimes the tough stuff is too overwhelming to put to paper.  What I have felt like writing about, time and again, are the wonderful people I am blessed to call friends.  If you are one of those wonderful people, I hope you find yourself in one of these paragraphs.  

     To My Old Friends,

"Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away." George Eliot
     

     Matt and I have both been blessed by enduring friendships with incredible people. You are the friends I call family. Like my family, you are the ones who know the full contents of my heart and love me in spite of myself. There is such freedom in that. You hold my past, my heartbreaks, my failures, and my deepest secrets, but you are good enough not to use them against me. Life has taken us a thousand different directions, but you are still the people who show up when everything falls apart--or when everything falls together. You are still the ones I count on to remember the inside jokes, decipher what I'm trying to tell you in over-the-phone sobbing, rush to my apartment when I have a mess too big to handle, cheer me up on a Monday night dinner date, hear my unfiltered thoughts, and stand beside me on my greatest and hardest days no matter how much time has passed since we last saw each other. Whether it's been days, weeks, or months, know you are always on my mind and in my heart. I love you all...and, just for the record, I was serious about the commune idea. Let's get rich and do it! Please?

     To My New Friends,

      You are the ones I never thought I'd find. In a scenario similar to an elusive quest for Mr. Right, by the time I found you, I was fairly convinced you did not exist. Thank you ever so much for proving me wrong and being worth the wait! Thank you for breezing into my life and making it more fun and so much richer than I could have imagined. You have supported me, believed in me, defended me, taught me, encouraged me, and loved me through my mistakes. Every time I have doubted myself, you have shown up to argue with me. Your uncanny abilities to know the exact second I need a text message, a hug, a prayer out of the blue, a pizza, a belly laugh, a pedicure, a baby to hold, a movie date with lots of popcorn, or a long drive just to be there during our hardest hour--these things never stop amazing me. In the little things and the big things, you have made all the difference. I have no doubt that ten years down the line, I'll be bumping you to the old friends column! I'm forever grateful that God brought you to me for such a time as this. 
     To My Better Half,
     

     When you left Indiana State with your B.S. in Criminology or made it through twenty-seven weeks of the ISP Academy, or started working the mean streets of this state, did you ever picture this? Did you know you'd become an expert driver of church vans with kids yelling for fruit snacks and kissing their shoes during a game of truth or dare? Did you have any idea you would spend entire days at theme parks with at least half a dozen kids hanging on you at once? Did you know that on your vacations, you would still get up and head to church at 8:00 to help everywhere from the nursery to check-in to technical support to elementary children's church? In fairness, I did warn you. "No one enters ministry alone," I said. "Be sure you want this too," I said. "It will make me even crazier and more insecure...and YOU'LL have to live with me," I said.

     And here we are.

     You have plunged into this world with me because of my dream and my calling, only to find you are the expert kid jungle gym, laptop fixer, situation smoother, and preschool charmer. Somehow, in the midst of all that, you find time to arrest bad guys and keep me sane.

I don't know how many times a girl can say the words, "I could never do this without you," but baby, I could never, ever do this without you! For each reassurance that it will indeed be okay, for each time you have to talk the panic out of me, for each field trip, for each Sunday, for helping me face my most terrible fears even as you walk through grief yourself, for every single time you show me grace when I've taken something out on you, for laughing with me every day, for being ever ready to defend me but wise enough to know when to show self-control, for never allowing me to take myself too seriously, for being my absolute best friend and partner in crime, I could not possibly thank you enough. You hold my whole heart forever and always! Even if I could find someone else to put up with my antics, there is no one else I would choose to walk with through this crazy life. I choo-choo-choose you, handsome!