I write tonight with a full heart (and tummy!) because of some very special people. You know them by name because of their fame as the friends who went with us to San Jose, who stuck by us through the darkest year of our lives, and who continue to stand with us as faithful, encouraging, steadfast amazing friends: Aaron and Candi. Today we spent the day in Corvallis. Jeff teaches there every Thursday, but usually he goes straight from there to tutoring, so he’s gone from 6am-6pm, and the idea of doing that day with a toddler in tow is not attractive. But now he’s done tutoring, so today Dutch and I went along. I had the treat of hooking up with a dear friend, Caila (her blog is to the right), who was visiting from Hawaii, who now has a little boy as well whom I’d never met. We pushed our little blond boys around Corvallis and caught up on God’s faithfulness in each other’s lives.
During the afternoon, Aaron and Candi had given the key to their apartment so I could have a place to put Dutch down for a nap (he’ll only sleep if he’s in a crib in a dark room). As you probably know, they recently moved to Corvallis and bought Big Town Hero, the home of the most delicious Italian Panini on earth. So, to get the shop going, they are both working there 7 days a week…all day long. They are my heros. WIth their 6-month-old daughter bouncing in an exersaucer behind the counter or napping in a pack ‘n’ play, Aaron and Candi bake bread and serve sandwiches with the joy and love of Jesus Christ each and every day. They own one car, so when Candi needs to go home for any reason, she runs, pushing Hannah in a jogging stroller the 4.5 miles to their apartment. Does this strike you as totally amazingly cool? Yes, it is. They’re in this crazy adventure together and I love them for it. So today, since they both live at the sandwich shop, she gave me their house key and let me chill at their apartment. Dutch and I both took naps (as I drifted off to sleep I was vaguely aware of the fact that while I was sleeping on their couch they were both working!), and were ready to go. Then, after Jeff was done teaching and through with his meetings, he headed over to the shop and hung out for a few hours until Aaron was off at 5:30. They fed us dinner–lifechanging sandwiches and paninis, followed by homemade chocolate chip cookies, then we put the kids in strollers and walked all over the OSU campus, us girls taking the lead power walking with the strollers, chatting incessantly, the boys strolling leisurely along behind us, catching up on each other’s lives as well. When the rain set in, we head back to their apartment. Dutch ate cheerios and played with trucks while Hannah nursed and we all just sunk into cozy couches and savored the comfortable familiarity of such sweet friendship. THey spoke profound words of truth, comfort, and encouragment to our weary souls. Not words of, “Get over it!” Words of, “Man, this is hard, and God is good–here’s why.” What struck me most was the sense of awe as I sat and realized, “Wow. These people really love us. Truly, truly love us.” They have this pure fervent desire to see God’s best for us, to bless us and love us. I can’t even explain how powerful that is. How precious and rare, a treasure indeed. We finished our sweet evening with them praying for us, for the future, for God’s best, for patience and grace. And after feebly attempting to thank them for things that cannot even begin to be expressed, we drove off, Dutch waving bye bye out the window.
I share about our day because I can’t not share about our day. There is just something life-changing about love. There is something profound about people who truly love other people. There is something so incredibly impacting about friends who truly love you as themselves. I pray we all can not only have those types of people but be those types of people, in a world that’s sorely lacking love at all.
Thank you, Aaron and Candi, for years of faithful friendship and love. And thank You, Lord, for the gift, the treasure, of friends.