81 days and counting

Mood: processing some thoughts...

A few weeks ago I got a facebook message from a friend of mine, asking a bunch of us to come see her speak at one of the Christian groups on campus and tell her story. I've been close friends with this girl since sophomore year of high school and I knew this was a big deal for her because, as popular and loud-mouthy she is, she clams up when she has to speak in front of people. She doesn't like to raise her hand in class or do presentations or any of that.

So this was kind of huge for her and I knew I had to be there.

Most of our little clique from freshman year turned out to see her. None of us had been involved in campus Christian groups (which, I'm sure, is some sort of statistical anomaly in a group of eight or so people), so we were all fairly out of our element, but we were there anyway.

My friend talked about some really terrible things* she had been through, only some of which I knew about after eight years of friendship. The new things she told me (and the thirty other people in the room) scared me, took me off guard, broke my heart and made me cry (and pretty freely, might I add... and in a room full of strangers, no doubt).

But aside from all that I was unspeakably proud of her. I was proud that she was able to get in front of all those people at all, let alone let them in to some of the darkest corners of her life. I admire her so much for that.

It was also heartwarming to see the group from freshman year back together again, not just for social time, but to support a friend who needed us. We all went such different directions and we don't see too much of one another, but our love for this one friend put us back together in a setting extremely foreign to us. But that was a sacrifice we all made. It showed me what people are willing to do for the people they love.

There were lots of hugs that night... probably more than I've ever had in my entire college experience combined (actually, I'm not sure that's an exaggeration... sounds about right to me).

*I'm not doing this to torture you with curiosity. It's her personal experience and she gets to share it with whomever she likes. It's not my history to tell.