Grace in my friendships, always.

I love my friends.

Let me repeat, because I want you all to fully understand: I love my friends.

The people God places in your life to push you, encourage you, pray with you, be with you through important moments. The people God places in your life that help you to grow.

I have found some amazing friends over the past few months, people that I thank God for daily.

Up front, I want to let everyone know that I am flawed beyond belief. I am not a perfect friend. I am not the best representation of Christ at any moment in any relationship. I fail, I hurt, I fall, I crawl back on my hands and knees and beg for grace. 

I am so thankful to have the kinds of friends who give me grace in my relationship with them.

Tonight, I needed grace in one of my friendships. I made a joke that didn't work quite well, which then led to some weird tension. I spent the next hour praying by myself, wondering what to do. I knew I couldn't fix it - usually me trying to do so makes things worse. I knew only the Lord could.
The only thing I kept thinking was Lord, I don't want to lose these friends. I don't want anything to change. They mean so much to me. Do whatever will most glorify You - but please Lord, glorify Your name by letting this friendship get over this bump! 

Now I don't know if that prayer was okay to pray - I know that our prayers should always be "Your will be done" - but how many times in Scripture did a prophet or even just layperson pray and pray that God would show them favor in a certain battle, relationship, with wisdom, in decision making, etc? So I prayed that God's grace would extend to this friendship. To these friendships.

Then, I prayed God would give me words, and I went out into the hall. And promptly sternly told the other people why I was still their friend, and why I was fighting to keep the friendship.
And everything was okay. I'm sure I scared them a bit (I have never talked to them sternly before). I'm sure they were a bit confused. But then we finished the night by hanging out for another hour and just talking. Fellowship. Spending time together.

God is so good. I thank God for these friendships because they allow me to grow in Christ. I thank Him for friends that I admire so much, who I can see Christ in. You all out there - if you don't have friends who show you Christ day in and day out,  you don't know what you're missing. Christ made us relational beings so that there will be representations of His love on earth.

Right now, I thank the Lord for my good friends. I thank the Lord for a great ski trip with 6 of them, for some awesome time praying and talking about Jesus and cooking and just hanging out laughing, making up beds and looking at pictures.

Praise the Lord for friends.

Two of my roommates.. I love them.

Me in the middle of my roommate and a good friend.