...of my dear dear college friends.December of 1997, I graduated from a state university and headed out to Texas for a year-long training school with YWAM. I was excited about the next step in my life. I was all too happy to leave behind the endless exams, term papers, and deadlines.
But I was NOT looking forward to leaving behind my girls! The ones that I met being a part of the freshman Young Life meetings...and then later got to know on a deeper level as we all joined the university's chapter of FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) . These are the women that became my best friends during my college years.
This is us...after a LONG day of catching up. It's 10:30 PM. We're all exhausted. I'm getting ready to leave. And we suddenly realized that we hadn't taken any group pictures together. Thank goodness for Jana's automatic thing-a-ma-bob on her camera.
Though there were a ton of other girls that were a part of our close group of friends, these are the some of the ones that I hung out with the most. Stephanie, Serena, Heather, Wendy, Jana.
Boating. Long talks over a gallon of ice cream being passed around the apartment living room. Worship. Conferences. Early morning jaunts to the gym. Hanging out with the FCA guys. Getting dressed up for an 80s dance party. Sneaking around in the middle of the night playing pranks on said guys...
Wendy and I actually went driving for an hour, looking for roadkill to pick up. We finally found one very dead, very squished possum. Then, we proceeded to drop it off in a strategic and very specified spot near a guy friend's car as a 8 AM surprise. AND the two of us spent weeks collecting bags and bags of cut that was hair from different hair salons. Just so we could drive, by cover of night, to an apartment complex to slather "grease"...and hair on a guy's car. We never got a picture, but it was a Hairy Car! *gag*
Weren't we horrible?! ;)
But through all the crazy and hard and hysterical and heartbreaking times, these ladies meant so much to me. When I was in the process of ending a destructive relationship, these were my shoulders. my confidants. my encouragements.
When we were all fried from exam week, they'd be there to "decompress" with me. Laughter truly is the best medicine. In fact, I specifically remember Stephanie once telling me that she had read that 5 minutes of hard belly laughter was an amazing ab workout. Soo...being the intelligent, always-up-for-a-challenge women that we were, we layed on her bed and made ourselves laugh like hyenas for as long as possible. We had some pretty tight abs back in the day. *wink*
When we just needed to veg and have a Girls' Night, these were the girls I'd usually hang with. Once there was a planned Friday night All Girl Hang Time with about 12 girls. But I couldn't come due to last minute RA duty (Resident Assistant of a girl's dorm), which meant that I couldn't leave my room all night. I had to be available...in my room...by the phone...and ready to do dorm "rounds" every hour. I was sooo upset.
But they all surprised me by bringing the Girls' Night TO MY ROOM. I walked up to my RA apartment after doing hourly rounds and there they all were. *sweet*
They brought a TV. movie. snacks. Honestly, I don't know that I've ever felt so loved by a group of friends before. I'm sure I cried and laughed at the same time.
All of those times...plus some that will remain hush-hush *laughing*...were these girls.
Years have brought huge changes. Four of us are married with 11 children (plus one on the way) between us! One is training for a National Ballroom Championship. One is hoping to go to Jordan as a full-time missionary soon. One is in the process of planting a church with her husband in the Carolinas. One is doing youth group ministry. One is trying to keep up with her three boys, aged three and under.
We're all busy busy. We're all different than what we used to be. But still after all these years, we had REAL times. Tears. Laughter. Prayer. Bonding over non-stop eating. What's can be better than that? :)
I love these ladies!! Hopefully our plan to make it a early event will happen...
