My Forever Friends

During my sophomore year of college, my roommates, Emily, Ashley, Kelly and I decided we wanted to start a Bible Study together and that we needed a leader. Emily felt that the youth pastor’s wife, Marianne, would be a good person to lead our group. She joined the Bible Study and suggested we start with Rick Warren’s, Purpose Driven Life. By January, our group had grown to include sisters, Rebecca and Sara. By my junior year of college, not only was I in a Bible Study with these girls, but we also all worked as youth leaders at our church under the direction of Marianne’s husband, Joe.

By my senior year, Kelly had moved away from us, was preparing for graduation, and became more involved with the Praise Team at church, so she was unable to stay with our Bible Study group. However, Ashley, Emily, Marianne, Sara, Rebecca, and I continued to meet. Over the years, we did so many studies that we can’t remember all of them. We spent hours doing life together. We’ve taken vacations, had beach days, traveled on mission trips, co-lead small groups, worked in every type of youth group activity you can imagine, cooked meals for friends, babysat, lived together, helped plan weddings… almost every wonderful memory I have from the past seven years was shared with at least one of these girls. God blessed us with one another, and we are so thankful that we got so many years to be together.

However, the past few years have brought a few changes to our group. The most noteworthy change has been the moves. Sara moved for work to Raleigh in 2005 (I think!). Ashley followed her in 2007. Last year, Marianne moved with her family to Texas where Joe took a job as a youth pastor in Waco.

Thankfully, Sara and Ashley are only an hour away, and I see them frequently. This past week, I decided to go visit Marianne over Spring Break. We had a wonderful time together, and we both reflected how the year apart had brought us closer to one another in some ways. It was encouraging to see how God has worked to help us hold our relationship together and how he has helped us encourage one another even though we are far apart. It was also good to see the ways that God is using Marianne and her family in Texas. I’m so thankful that he has used them to bless people so far away from Greenville. Nevertheless, saying goodbye at the airport was not an easy task, and as I boarded the plane, I felt my heart ache with the knowledge that they really live far away! I went through the entire day of traveling on the verge of tears (and the knowledge that Emily will be moving in less than two months to Louisiana for her husband’s job didn’t help matters!).

However, when I arrived at my final stop in Raleigh, I was greeted at the airport by the smiling face of my friend, Sara. She picked me up in my car (which she had retrieved so I wouldn’t have to pay to keep it at the airport), and we drove to meet Ashley for dinner. The next night I watched a movie with Rebecca, and we both had the opportunity to talk with Marianne via webcam. The following day, Emily and I went for an hour long walk where our mouths moved just as much as our feet, and God reminded me that though we are separated by miles, he has given me life long friends. I know that the years will bring many more changes, and that is always difficult for me, but I’m also thankful that through our many years of living in the same town, and for some of us, the same house or apartment, we’ve learned to love and appreciate each other in ways we might otherwise have missed. And it is our ability to understand each other so well that will allow us to stay forever friends.