Mugs and mercies

So once upon a time, I got married and moved into a scary new ward. It was a weird ward, where everyone was a couple. It was called the married student ward. I was not use to anything like this, and I was still getting used to my other half (we had only been married for 2 weeks at this point). Making friends was pretty difficult, because everyone already had a best friend...their one true love. Now if you learned anything from the Princess Bride, you know, that separating true love is a very difficult task.  They traveled in packs of two. Always together and happy, which is really great, just not so easy to make friends.

Married Ward in a nutshell

I was intimidated and worried I never find a friend. But then one day at church, I saw this girl. She was wearing mismatched socks even though she was wearing a very pretty dress. Hey I could be friends with her! It should have been easy from there...But I didn't say hi for awhile. I was scared to. Then one day, Matt got sick of me talking about how I could probably be friends with her, and how I wasn't expecting a bosom friend or anything, and made me commit to finding out her name. Ugh. I was terrified, but then I sat next to her at church. She was nice! She liked princesses! And Matt even thought her hubby was cool!!! Ding ding ding!! I went home found her on facebook, and even more importantly her blog. I found this blog post. It was everything I was thinking and feeling! After that I knew we would be good friends.

And we did. We bonded over cooking, chocolate, princesses, tea parties, fish heads, etc.

Then she moved away.

That was sad.

But never fear, we kept in touch. Mostly through our blogs. 

Yesterday though fate took action. I had a busy day full of being slightly sick with a sick offspring (so not very fun). I had a whole bunch of errands to run so I wasn't near my computer all day. Matt and I had a dinner date at 7, but I was so distracted buying stuff for baby's Easter basket that I was running late. I got home at 6 and noticed that Natashya wrote a new blog post. I looked at the time (it was now 6:50) and debated for a second, before deciding to read her post before leaving. (That isn't super normal for me, I hate being late.) It was about how she has been sick for a while. It made me sad reading it, because even though I had suspected something was up, I didn't like reading about my friend being sick. I kind of felt like moping a bit but I was late. So I grabbed baby and ran to the car and pulled out (it was like 7 sharp). When I pulled out of the parking garage. 

I stopped (you are supposed to but that wasn't the only reason that I stopped). 

There literally across the street was an Andy, and not just any Andy, but Natashya's husband Andy! He stared and me and I stared at him (I was still sick and tired. I knew there was a chance I was hallucinating)  before smiling. :) I parked my car diagonal across the street and said hi! We started talking quickly, before I remembered that I had something for her (oh and parking diagonal across a street isn't the smartest thing)! 

It had been sitting on my table for like 3 weeks. I read this post of hers about a sad day for flower mugs a long time ago, and since then I had been looking for a mug for her. And I found one not too long ago. Matt wasn't convinced I had the right address so he didn't want me to send it. (I didn't want to ask her for it again, because that ruins the surprise) But we needed it to go somewhere since we are moving in exactly 1 month. Andy seemed heaven sent. Not only could he take the mug that I so desperately wanted to give to her, but also seeing him made me feel better about her being sick and being so far away. It was a sweet tender mercy that God sent me in the middle of 3 really really crazy weeks. 

Little moments like that let me know that God loves me and that I matter to him. It was a great little message and reminder to have right before Easter.