Two and a half years ago now John and I graduated from LCU, and moved to Dallas. It was the second time in my whole life that I moved to a different city (the first being to college), and at the same time all of my friends from college were also moving off to begin their careers. It was so exciting to come to Dallas and begin ministry along side my husband but it was also terribly difficult to start over making all new friends.
I am the type of person that although I love knowing and being friends with tons of different people, I always end up finding a comfort zone, a core group of people that I completely bare myself to. That I share my struggles, joys, and everything in between, it is always difficult to find a new core in a new city. In college it was easy, everyone was looking for new friends, and there I found more then I could have ever imagined that were more dear and precious to me then any I had had before. But moving to Dallas, I am an adult now (supposedly) and adults are too busy to be searching out new friends or to spend much time building relationships. So I prayed and prayed, and I had my friends that had moved away pray for me, and God heard my prayer.
I am the type of person that although I love knowing and being friends with tons of different people, I always end up finding a comfort zone, a core group of people that I completely bare myself to. That I share my struggles, joys, and everything in between, it is always difficult to find a new core in a new city. In college it was easy, everyone was looking for new friends, and there I found more then I could have ever imagined that were more dear and precious to me then any I had had before. But moving to Dallas, I am an adult now (supposedly) and adults are too busy to be searching out new friends or to spend much time building relationships. So I prayed and prayed, and I had my friends that had moved away pray for me, and God heard my prayer.
I become accountability partners with three other women, which shared my faith, my age, and my desire to have close friends. It was a bigger blessing then I had even imagined. And I could go on and on about how great it was, but I will move one because there is still more. It is now two years later, back in August one of the girls moved to Fort Worth and though she is not far it was still a goodbye because we would not be seeing her three times or more a week anymore. And so our group was down to three. And now we have come to know that at the end of this month we be saying goodbye to another one from our group. Lesli will be moving to Elizabeth Town, KY. And I know she will hate it that I even wrote about this, but I do it not to make her feel bad or sad but to let her know the amazing answer to a huge prayer that I had so many others pray for.
And now there will be two, and don’t worry its not oh poor Crysty, because I have John, I have my amazing family within 30 minutes of me, I still have Summer, and most importantly I believe. I have already seen though how hard I am going to have to try to keep my heart open though, just last week the newly marrieds class had a big get together because there are so many new members in the class. Sure enough, since we spend all of our time with the youth group when at church we only knew a hand full of the 32 people that were there, and I caught myself thinking…why, why even open up to any of these people because they will just be gone in another two years pursuing their dreams and careers somewhere else. But when I think of all of the joy that I had the past two years I remember that it is worth it, to meet and say goodbye it is all the in between that is wonderful. Sorry this is soooo long, how do you cope with saying goodbye and making new friends? Picture above is Summer, me, and Lesli.
And now there will be two, and don’t worry its not oh poor Crysty, because I have John, I have my amazing family within 30 minutes of me, I still have Summer, and most importantly I believe. I have already seen though how hard I am going to have to try to keep my heart open though, just last week the newly marrieds class had a big get together because there are so many new members in the class. Sure enough, since we spend all of our time with the youth group when at church we only knew a hand full of the 32 people that were there, and I caught myself thinking…why, why even open up to any of these people because they will just be gone in another two years pursuing their dreams and careers somewhere else. But when I think of all of the joy that I had the past two years I remember that it is worth it, to meet and say goodbye it is all the in between that is wonderful. Sorry this is soooo long, how do you cope with saying goodbye and making new friends? Picture above is Summer, me, and Lesli.
