You give and take away

The end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012 have been way different than I expected. In one area in particular... and that's friendship.

At the end of 2011, friendships that I treasured and truly believed would last for years seemed to fall off of the map. Whether over petty arguments or just the general fading apart overtime that sadly happens in life, they weren't where I had thought they'd be. I was really upset by it and I still am. I'm hoping it'll change, I hate losing friends. No one likes to think back to good memories and realize that the people involved in them aren't even there to talk to anymore.

Friends are so precious to me because, unfortunately, I've struggled with finding that key group of friends throughout my life. Loneliness is my biggest enemy, it creeps up on me at just the right time.

But thankfully 2012 has been full of new friendships! Her Campus has been such a blessing to me, not only for my resume, but for my friendships. I love meeting with the Exec girls and chatting about TV shows and the HC writers are starting to become some of my favorite people on the ASU campus.

But not only that, I'm also meeting girls through a common faith, which is so awesome. About 2 weeks ago I invited my friend Brooke, who I met through my dorm freshman year, to come to Elevation with me. Having Elevation here is one of the best things that's happened to Boone. I picked her up and we went together and she ended up loving it. During the car ride home, we mentioned meeting once a week for a book-club-coffee-date-god-time.

Well, little did we know that our two person book-club-coffee-date-god-time would turn into about 10-12 girls getting together to grow in the Lord.

I know that God is all over this. We created a Facebook group, I texted friends and Brooke did too, and within a night we'd gotten 5 times bigger.

I know that this is something that was part of his plan. As some friendships are fading, new ones are beginning. "When God closes a door, he opens a window..."

This is a mismatched group of girls. We're not perfect, but we're not judging. Some of us grew up in the Church, others of us know very little. We're all just beginning to get to know each other. But We're all meeting together to just listen, to talk, to socialize, to establish a solid group of girl friends that we can rely on to motivate us, hold us accountable and to draw us closer to the Lord.

I want to try to help lead these girls in the right direction and I want to follow them in their pursuit of God. I'm so excited for what He has in store.

" You give and take away, you give and take away, my heart will choose to say Lord blessed be your name..."