Friendship

Yeah I know I’m doing two blog posts in one day. But I have a lot to say! But they needed to be separate posts.

Last night I came across this quote on blissful quotes. It says:

One of the things that makes me who I am is the loyalty I feel towards those I hold close to my heart.”

I don’t think I’ve ever found a quote that describes me better then that one does.

If you’ve been around in my life for a while you’ve probably noticed that I’m very intentional about my friendships. I reach out and try to help my friends as much as I can. This is sometimes received gratefully, and sometimes it is perceived as being controlling. (Obviously, the latter irritates me since that is the opposite of anything I try to do.) 

I feel a sense of loyalty to my friends. Let me give you an example.

Two years ago I had a best friend. I thought she was amazing. She lived with us for two summers, and spent more time at my house then she did her own. She had a singing voice of an angel and we spent hours upon hours making videos of her and putting them on youtube. Eventually she started being mean towards me. She treated me as if I didn’t matter and like I was crap. She wouldn’t look at me and when she did her eyes began to fill with hate. I don’t even really know why still to this day. She talked crap about me behind my back. I think its safe to say she hurt me more then any of my other friends have.

But I held onto the relationship. I kept giving and giving to her, that’s how I am. I give to show I care. Its just me. And I won’t give up on a relationship until 1) I’m either so hurt that holding onto the relatonship any longer will only cause me to literally go insane or 2) I’m sure there is nothing left to the relationship what-so-ever. If it’s the second option I usually wait months to see if the relationship can be fixed before I just cut myself off from it.

Here's why.

In my opinion, my best friends are the people that I’m able to open up to, that I trust, that I love, that care about me, that I can help in some way, and that we can both encourage each other in our walks with God. I don’t have a ton of best friends. I have a solid few. And those people mean the world to me and I would fight for their friendships for as long as I felt there was something left to hold onto to, no matter how they treat me during that time. Maybe it's unhealthy, but thats how I am. I wont budge until I am 100% sure for myself I am not wanted. My old best friend treated me horribly for months and I still didn't give up and loved her anyway. And months later when her little sister's leukemia got back can you guess who the first person she called was?

I want them to realize that in my mind their friendships are worth fighting for. Always.

Today I'm not sure if I could ever be friends with my old best friend again. She hurt me enough that after a year of trying to stay friends I had to let go because it hurt too much. That's a rare case though. All my other relationships are ones that I can see lasting for a lifetime. I mean, my friends from home- Annie, Nikki, Rachel, Em K and Caroline...I don't want to picture my life without them as well as all my friends here at Trinity... I would give anything for them because their friendships mean so much to me. And for the most part I think I do a good job of making that clear. I've had people tell me that they aren't worth fighting for. To me, there's no such idea. I won't give up on people. It's just not my genetic code. People aren't worth giving up on.

I love that second quote. Never give up on people, even when things get rocky. Because all relationships in life are going to struggle at some point. Trials will test your relationships. But the ones that make it through the hard times are often the ones that last.

I love my friends. They are incredible blessings to me. God gives us friends for a reason. One of my favorite quotes is, "God made us friends because He knew our parents couldnt handle us as sisters." God puts friends in our lives to help us, encourage us, love us, and so much more. I hope it is clear in my friendships that that is what I want to do. 

Beautiful Scars

There’s been a lot going on in my life lately.  There’s been times when I’ve questioned God and what He’s doing in my life. I don’t understand why thing after thing keeps happening to me. It seems unbelievable. So today I was feeling discouraged and down and I did not want to go to work. While I was driving there I simply prayed, “God, I don’t understand why you keep letting things happen to me. I don’t understand it at all. Please reveal to me in some way that everything that is happening is for Your glory and that it is your plan for me.” 

I had been at work for about an hour. Cooper was sleeping soundly and I was playing in the backyard on the swings with four year old Quinn. She reminds me so much of my little Millie sometimes. Anyways, her shoe came untied and she ran into my arms and asked me to tie her shoe for her. I tickled her and told her I would. Laughing she sat down on my lap and I began to tie her shoe. She noticed then a scar on my hand. She traced it with her finger and said in all seriousness, “I have a scar on my hand too.” She rolled up her little sleeve and showed me her small white scar. I looked at it and said something about how I didn’t like scars. She kind of shrugged her shoulders and said one sentence that made me stop in my tracks. 

She sounded about a thousand years old when she simply said, “Yeah, but scars can be beautiful.”

I was dumbfounded.

“Quinn is that something your mom told you?” I asked her, shocked at what had just come out of this small four year olds mouth.

“No. I just think my scar looks like a flower and flowers are pretty.” was her response.

She kissed the top of my head and ran off to the swings and was calling for me to join her within seconds. But I sat there, awed by the words that had just come out of her mouth.

Our scars can be beautiful. 

I came across this song a couple of weeks ago and I loved it. My favorite line says:

I’m letting go because there were scars before my scars,  love written on the hands that hung the stars, hope  is living in the blood that was spilled for me.

He knows my pain and my struggles and He lets it happened for a reason.

Jesus showed His scars to Thomas who doubted Him. Just like He shows his scars to us. His nailed scarred hands are there catching every tear that we cry and are there to hold us when our world falls apart. 

Quinn and Dylann are both extremely wise beyond their years. They are smart, witty, and full of life. But that isn’t a sentence that just comes out of a four year olds mouth. That was God. It meant something and it was meant for me. He answered my prayers. Almost as if he was directly saying, “Yes Emily. I am letting these things happen because I have a plan for you and I know what is best for you. Trust me.” 

And I will.

It won’t be easy. But life is never easy. I’m not asking for it to be easy either. I just want to know that God is going to use all this pain and suffering in my life for something greater and something that will bring Him glory.

And He will.

Life.

I’m stuck.

That’s the only way to describe how I’m feeling.

I look across the table at my brother who has come to sit with me, knowing I don’t want to talk, but I don’t want to be alone either. I realize that even though he sometimes annoys me like crazy, he will always be there for me. For a moment I feel guilty about being angry with him earlier in the week.

I stare blankly at my homework in front of me, unable to focus on any of it. I push it away from me, disgusted with it, and myself.

“Maybe I should just give up.” The thought is every present in my mind, though I refuse to actually give in to it. I would hurt to many people. The last thing I want to do is hurt people like they’ve been hurting me. I think of Kerstin who has been a constant encouragement to me in the past twenty four hours, sending me texts that make me feel loved, when I wonder who in the world really loves me. I think of Max, who is probably sitting at home, reading his book for school, and I remember how blessed I am to have such an amazing kid in my life. I think of little Millie May who has been ever present in my mind for the past week and I think about how what I do affects her, even when she is thousands of miles away. I think about my dear Kieffer who is going through so much but still makes time to talk to me about me. I think of my parents who welcomed me home last night when I called bawling and saying I needed to get away. 

My thoughts are interrupted by a familiar face and I put on a huge smile as a friend walks towards our table. I ask how she is, she asks how I am. I reply “Im good.“ But she doesn’t realize that on the inside I’m really breaking into little pieces. I so want to ask for a hug, but don’t because I’m shaking, a sure sign that something is wrong with me. I have to be strong, I can’t let her know I’m hurting. If there’s anything I’ve learned in the past 24 hours it’s that  sometimes it’s better to keep emotions to yourself. Because then the only person that can hurt you, is you.

It’s a stupid philosophy. Shut everyone out so no one can hurt you. I’m disgusted that I even had the thought. Living a life that way would mean living a lonely life. And the one thing I don’t want to be right now is alone. I need to surround myself with people. I know that if I’m around people I’ll be fine. I’ve gotten so good at being open about how I feel lately, why am I all of a sudden terrified that talking about my feelings will end up causing me a heartbreak?

I start writing a poem. I seem to always be able to get my emotions out in poetry. By the time I’m done I have a poem that is over two pages long. It is full of the emotion that I think I feel, but can’t seem to bring to the surface. I glance at myself in the mirror, searching my eyes for some sort of indication that I’m still in there, even though my mind is blank. I wonder how I can write what I feel with complete accuracy, but when I go to talk about it outloud fear seems to overcome me and I remain quiet, blank and emotionless. 

I open my backpack and pull out the teal cardboard box that holds my Bible. It hasn’t left my side all day, though I haven’t actually opened it. I flip open the beautifully lined pages and pull out a list of verses a friend sent me two years ago. The verses I still to this day go back and reread whenever I have a bad day. As I pour over the verses I start to feel better. My cold hands return to their normal temperature. My heartbeat slows down. I’m comforted by what I read. My God is powerful. My God is awesome. My God loves me. My God rejoices over me with singing. My God will never give me more then I can bear. My God has a plan for me. My God heals me. My God will never let me go. I can’t get enough of what I’m reading so I just pour over the verses over and over and over again. When I finish reading for the first time all day I can tell I’m happy.

The color has returned to my pale face. This time when I look in the mirror I see a broken girl, healed by an incredible, powerful, almighty God. So I get up and eat something for the first time all day. A friend walks by and asks me how I am. This time I look at her and give her a huge smile and say, “I’m good.” But this time, I truly mean it. 

Bucket List

So, today has consisted of laying on the ground, making my bucket list on pinterest and playing tetris battle while the homework i have to do is right next to me, still untouched. It's obviously been a productive day. But here's somethings I've put on my bucketlist. 

Easter Break and life as of late

Life has been really great lately. There’s not much more to say other then that. I love my life. I love my family. I love my roommates. I love my friends (school friends and home friends).  Most everything about my life is beyond fantastic. 


I’m definitely already dreading the end of the school year. I guess you never win in college years. You’re always missing someone. It’s going to be so weird to not be living with these 3 lovely ladies for the 3 months of summer. I’ve been trying to imagine waking up and not seeing them for an extended amount of time and have found that I just prefer not to think about it. We are all thinking the same thing, though we don’t talk about it much, it makes us all to sad.  We’ve all agreed to summer visits and weekly skype dates though, so it shouldn’t be toooooo terrible. But still terrible.


I’ve also realized how much I’m gonna miss  my other friends from here. They’re all so awesome, not seeing them is going to be so sad! Life is gonna be so boring! Actually it won’t, between working and hanging out with my girls I’ll be busy and I’m sure summer will fly by. But it is still going to be hard not seeing everyone from here. 


We just got back from Easter break last night. Easter was a blast. I got to see most of my little cousins who I just love to death. I mean, they’re basically the cutest things ever.

And just spending time with family I don’t get to see very often was pretty much incredible. I love my extended family, and even though we don’t get together very often, it just makes those times we do see each other so much more fun and exciting.


I also spent some good quality time with my baby brother, who is not such a baby anymore (He‘s 15 for those of you who don‘t know). He’s grown up quite a bit since I left for school and I think I realized it for the first time over this break. He’s such a sweet kid. He’s actually good at offering advice now, and sounds about 1000 years old when he speaks his mind. He can successfully make me laugh harder then everyone except maybe Laura and Becca, and is not “too cool” to sit and watch Gilmore Girls with me at 11pm and eat pizza. Even though we may not always agree on everything and sure we argue just like normal siblings, we’re still best buds like we were growing up, and that makes me happy. I’m excited to see where life takes him over the next couple of years. He makes my life even better then it already is. 

        <--- Us about a year ago
         ---> us about 15 years ago




I’ve also decided to take up rollerblading as a normal habit. I decided that I actually like it, no matter how scared I am of falling down. My goal is to be able to rollerblade on the bike path with my dog this summer. That’s gonna be interesting!


The only real complaint I have about life at this particular moment is the fact that I haven’t had a decent nights sleep in weeks. I’ve been plagued by horrible, horrible nightmares almost every night for the past 3 weeks and they keep getting more and more intense. When I was younger I used to get nightmares and they always had music in them. I was able to wake myself up quickly when I even began to hear the music start playing in my nightmare. These nightmares are different. They suck me in to the point where when I am finally able to wake up I’m a sweating, crying, shaking mess. I can’t seem to escape them. I’ve even tried taking motrin pm before bed in order to sleep more soundly but it hasn’t worked. I’ve talked with my roommate about it a couple times, she’s the only one I’ve actually shared the details of the nightmares with, and the conclusion we’ve seem to come to is if they don’t stop soon I should probably go talk to a counselor or someone just to maybe try and figure out what’s going on up there to cause these nightmares. Because I honestly have no clue. But I cant go on like this for too much longer, I’ll be out of energy by noon everyday.


Well...the homework awaits. Another post soon to come!

Thankful

Today, I'm thankful. I'm thankful for my amazing group of friends that I have here at Trinity.

I'm thankful for a God who loves me.

I'm thankful for my family.

I'm thankful for being able to be at Trinity.

But today I'm super thankful for my absolutely incredible roommates who have been such an incredible blessing to me. 

Life is full of God's blessings. I have so much to be thankful for. I have such a great life. I have such amazing friends. Some days, like today, I just step back and look at everything I have and am amazed at how blessed I am. This week I encourage you to write down at least 10 blessings that you usually don't thank God for. Then take sometime pray and then encourage those around you to do the same. 

It's been a while since I've posted anything on here...woops. My life lately has been super crazy, and when life gets crazy somethings just get pushed to the sidelines, like blogging, or calling to talk to friends on the phone...sometimes I feel like I never leave my desk because I have so much homework.

But for right now, it looks like this week is going to be somewhat easy. I only have one exam, which is tomorrow so the rest of the week should be semi-sort of easy. And it helps that we have Friday off, meaning I only have 4 full school days ahead of me before I get to go home for 4 whole nights. I'm so excited for Easter break because I get to see tons of family members I haven't seen in ages, including my new baby cousin Cole who I've only gotten to meet once. And of course I get to see all my lovely friends, Annie, Nikki, Rachel, and Em who I love dearly and always get excited about seeing.

The past week and a half or so has been a constant roller coaster of emotions. It's been a hard 9 or so days, but it's been so good at the same time. There's been so much going on that I feel like I haven't really had the chance to come up for air in ages.

Other then the homework in the past two weeks I've had to figure out how to deal with a situation with my mom, deal with being deeply hurt by someone I love dearly and having to learn how to forgive her, watching my grandma fall apart because her dearest friend is dying, having a friend in the hospital, learning my grandpa has to have surgery, coming to terms with the fact that Woody is going to be an RA next year and I'm not, and just a bunch of little things that have been knocking the wind right out of me again and again. It may not seem like a lot, but to me, it was enough to easily overwhelm me.

In the midst of everything going on, I've been very hurt by people who I wouldn't expect to hurt me. Walls that were torn down piece by piece have been thrown back up, not likely to come back down anytime soon. But while those walls have gone back up, other walls have come falling down. 

WhiteSand Images

These girls have been a huge reason why I've gotten through the last 2 weeks as easily as I have. About 2 weeks ago Laura talked to me about some things and then a couple days after that I opened up to her for the first time all year, and after that God did some amazing things in me and the next thing I know I was opening up with Becca too. Whatever walls I had with them came to the ground in a matter of hours. We've had some amazing talks about life, about God, and just have had major bonding time. And it's been so good. They've held me while I've cried and been crazy insane to make me laugh. I am so incredibly grateful for them and the amazing women of God that they are. 

While I'm talking about my roommates, I might as well say that they've been listening to these two songs like crazy lately, and I've gotten rather addicted. (There's a story behind the first song that I'll have to share sometime) They're awesome songs to dance to or just put on to put you in a FANTASTIC mood (like I'm in right now)

Silly, but funny and fun. Laura's made a habit out of dancing and singing along to both of these songs and I cannot keep myself from laughing when she does. Oh silly girl.

Summary of this blog post? Life gets overwhelming sometimes. People are gonna hurt and break you. But life is really good and if you're lucky, you'll have awesome people (roommates) who put you back together and make you laugh so hard that no sound comes out of your mouth.