New Friends

I am not sure what God is up to in my life lately, but He has introduced me to the most amazing, faith filled people this year. As I reflect back over the year, this has truly been a year of encouragement and mentoring for me. I am so thankful. This is the year that our oldest kids really started hanging out more with their peers - playing tennis, volleyball at the beach, and football at the park. It was a year for letting out the rope a little bit, and they have done so well. They really have some amazing peers who are really an "iron sharpening iron" group. Meanwhile, the moms of those peers have really gotten to be some of my very best friends as well. We have spent many hours chatting together at the park, the tennis courts, and each others' homes. These are women who inspire me, women who have raised children into adulthood and succeeded. These are the women that I look up to.


This year, I was also privileged to spend more time than usual with my friend and mentor Mardy Freeman. Twice she and two of her boys spent the weekend in our home for Communicators for Christ events. It brightens my day to spend just an hour with Mardy! If you are reading, I love you!!


Mardy also invited me to spend the weekend with her and several other ladies at a prayer retreat in Blue Ridge, GA this summer. It was unbelievable! God was so gracious to give me this "mountaintop experience." I will never forget those ladies that I bonded so strongly with after just a couple of days.

Just yesterday, I was privileged to meet the Diez family. They live in Miami and pastor Miami Bible Church. Bryce met their oldest children, twin girls, through our state homeschool group's pen pal page. They also participate in several other online forums together. Somehow, the girls just completely hit it off and have spent hours and hours talking online. We all decided it was time to see if these were "real people" or just "virtual friends." We met at the zoo yesterday and had a great time. They have five children and they were just beautiful, godly people.


I feel like God is lining our family up with His people all over the world. Over the past year or two I have been back in touch with friends who I haven't seen or talked to in years. Through this blog I have been encouraged and challenged by many of you who I haven't seen or spent time with in years! You know who you are - I love you all! The internet can certainly be a blessing (though it can be a tool of the enemy as well). I don't know if it means that God is granting me the blessing of being encouraged by people farther along the spiritual path than I, if He is going to take our family somewhere far away and knows we need a solid base of mentors and friends, or if He is just getting together our "party" list for Heaven.....but, whatever it is, I am enjoying reconnecting with old friends and meeting new ones who share the most important common bond we could share - our love for Jesus Christ and desire to do His will, whatever it is and wherever it leads!


Here are a couple of pictures of Bryce and her friends - now "real" instead of "virtual."