Day 9: A picture of your friends...

Well finding a picture that has all of my amazing friends together would probably be impossible so I decided to give you a "written picture" of my friends because I am a very blessed girl when it comes to my friendships! I think you can tell alot about a person when you meet their friends so I hope all of you will learn a little bit more about me through this post!

I am a very loyal person, so loyal that I have only lost maybe 2 friendships in my entire life. Obviously friendships are always changing so there will be seasons that certain friends are a bigger part of your life than others because of distance, being in the same chapter in life etc. but my feeling is that once you are friends with me you are always my friend unless you decide differently. That being said I have been so lucky to have picked-up some pretty fabulous friends throughout my 26 years of life. My friends are so important to me and I love celebrating the happy times and being there for them during the sad times and just laughing through everything else.

Because of the importance that I place on my friendships when something goes wrong with them it hurts me pretty bad. I have been deeply hurt over the last few years because of a broken friendship that took a toll on an entire group of my friends. I don't want to go into detail because I want this blog to be about the great friendships I have but I feel you should know where I came from to understand how lucky I feel today. I don't think I will ever know why this brokeness had to occur nor will I understand what actually event happened but there are a few things that I do know...

What I know is that the Lord was so faithful to me during this time and He used some amazing girls and my husband to get me through it all. I know that God is in control and He had a purpose for it happening, that purpose that I truly believe I will learn someday. I also know that the friendships that I do have in my life are based on unconditional love, honesty and the truth that each person is better because of the friendship and for that I am so thankful. I am also thankful for restoration with a few of the friendships invovled and although they are not the relationships they once were there is hope that they will be better despite the pain.

I have a pretty diverse group of friends and I love all of them so much. Below is the line-up... :-)

I was very lucky to have been dropped into a Christian sorority in college and was able to meet girls that brought me closer to the Lord, brought me to Ryan and have been fantastic friends ever since. There is just a closeness I have with these girls that it unexplainable and I just love them!

My jobs have always brought great people my way as well- I have 2 very close friends from a previous job and 4 great friends that the AHA brought to me that have been so great to know!

I also made some incredible friends while living in Fort Worth and was able to become closer than ever to 2 of my sorority sisters while being there as well and those friendships are ones that have a special place in my heart because they were my family for two years. I miss them everyday but I am so thankful for the weekends I get to spend with them and that when we are together it's as if we haven't missed a beat which is exactly how it should be!

Here in the Houston area I am so lucky to have another group of my sorority sisters that I have been able to see on a pretty consistent basis- obviously I wish I could see them every other day but everytime we get together it is so much fun and I really cherish them! We are scattered from the Houston area all the way up to Huntsville and I love when we have reuninons!

Along with all of my work and college friends I have also been able to acquire some really great married friends! This group is a mixture of people from my youth group, college friends who are married now and new friends from our church! Married friends were definately something we lacked up in Fort Worth and here we have an over-flow and I couldn't be happier about that!
Another group of friends that I adore are the mentors that I have been able to acquire from our church. I feel so blessed to be surrounded by older women who love the Lord and who want to invest in me and our ministry. It has been so great to get their advice and just to have that support!

I am also glad to still have a few friends that I have had since highschool, some from TWHS that I have I have recently reconnected with and some from my youth group that have stayed so strong and I love that we have so many great memories while also still having so much in common today.

When I think about the friendships I have been blessed with I know that Lord is not only in control of my relationships but He is also blessing me a ridiculous amount despite the pain that I went through over the broken friendships. It doesn't make me miss those friendships less but it does show me that He hasn't forgotten about my pain and that he is filling my life with uplifting people and I couldn't be more thankful for that!