A season of teenagers

Sometimes God sends us friends in such unsuspecting ways. My friendship with Amy is a prime example of that.

David started middle school right after we adopted Juan, and he jumped right into the youth group at church and all of the mission opportunities it offered. He happened to get to know a special girl on those first few mission trips who he ended up dating through most of high school. That sweet relationship opened up just as sweet of a friendship between her mom and me. A friendship that accompanied us through our young teenagers years of dating, through a season of high school, through a season of teaching second graders, through a season of our kids going on mission trips, and then a season of college. Though our kids eventually stopped dating each other, they still went to youth group together, went on all the same church trips, went to the same high school, and then attended the same college. These shared experiences between our kids gave Amy and me a lot in common, but we also taught the same grade in the same district, attending many of the same trainings together. It seemed the more we talked and went out for coffee together, we found out more and more things we had in common. 

We joked around with our kids in the beginning of our friendship that we were besties just to mess with them. But over time, that's exactly what we became. We've laughed together, played together, dined together, hung out as families together, rode Sky Screamers and roller coasters together, gone on day trips together, studied the Bible together, gone to church together, prayed together, cried together, and shared a lot of deep conversation over coffee together. We held each other up through some pretty hard stuff, and I couldn't ask for a better friend over the last several seasons into the present, raising our kids together from the end of middle school till almost the end of college already.