Through the Years

As I mentioned yesterday, I spent the weekend in Atlanta with three of my best friends. One of those is my sister-in-law who I see quite often but the other girls I rarely see anymore because of distance but talk to quite frequently on the phone. We had the best time. All we did was talk, lay by the pool and eat. That's it. We weren't on any time schedule. We went to bed late, slept in and then went out to eat when we were hungry. It was nice to not have to be anywhere at any specific time. All we did was enjoy being together. That was our plan all along. We didn't want to spend the time shopping (although we did go to Super Target the first night and spent a good 2 hours there.) We just wanted to spend the time together just talking and laughing and that is what we did. I hadn't laughed that hard in a very long time and it made me realize just how much I miss those girls. When they were all living in Nashville we had the best time and had gotten very close. Then as they moved away I thought we might lose touch and not be as close as we were but actually the distance had only made us closer and you could really tell by this weekend. It was like no time had passed at all between us. I hadn't seen Leslie in two years and the last time I saw Maranda was back in October. All four of us had been, I guess you could say, beaten down this past year and had felt lonely and lacking any real friendship where we currently live. I know that I was hurt very badly by someone who I thought was a friend and I know that my sister in law has had a not that great experience lately with friends so to say the least this weekend was much needed by all four of us. I couldn't have asked for a better weekend and I know that this weekend made us all stronger as friends. I had someone tell me once this past year that I needed to forget those friends because they are no longer here. What?! How can I do that? We have been through so much together. We have gone through weddings, birth of babies, loss of babies, death of grandparents, illnesses and just the other things that life throw at you...good and bad. We have been through so much and once you've been through those things with someone there is a connection that can never be broken. They lift me up emotionally and spiritually. They are the best friends any person could ask for. I can't forget that just because they no longer live in the area. These three girls are the ones that I know I can totally be myself around. I can act goofy or silly and they will be right there acting silly and goofy right along with me. We have been there for each other for all the good and bad and have always tried our hardest to be encouragers for each other. We love and accept each other for who we are and who we are not. It's hard to imagine what my life was like before they all came into it and I don't what I would do if they weren't in my life.

It was very funny on Saturday night. We went to Macaroni Grill for dinner and Leslie and Maranda had both brought their cameras. We were taking so many pictures. We were acting silly but I promise we weren't being loud but with two cameras clicking away I think the flashes were getting on the entire restaurants' nerves. To be honest, I never even thought of that. We were in the corner of the restaurant but I think we were being noticed by everyone. We didn't really care because we are never together and we were having fun. But anyway, before we got our food we were taking so many pictures and being silly. Then we put the cameras down to eat. Well, after we ate we grabbed the cameras and started taking pictures again. Leslie said that when we started taking pictures, that one guy looked at his wife and said, "Here they go again. They've got those cameras out." This cracked us up! We were laughing so hard at that. One guy even said as we were leaving, "Aren't you going to take a picture of me?" It was then that we realized that we might have been disrupting every one's dinner. Oh well, we had a great time...and we have the pictures to prove it. :-) One of the best weekends I've ever had.

I did have Ladies Prayer Group last night and it was amazing. I'm not leading the Bible Studies this year because I felt like I needed a break after doing it for seven years. My other best friend, Tammy, graciously stepped in for me and is doing a fabulous job. We are studying the Proverbs 31 woman and how to be a virtuous woman. It's so hard to try and live up to her but the lessons have been so good and last night was about self-worth. It was so good and I learned a lot about myself and how God sees my self-worth. I loved the line that was in the study that said, "God never intended our worth to be built on anything other than our standing in His Son." That really struck home to me. We, as woman, try to build our self worth on what magazines say or what other people think. We try say to our selves, "If I would just lose this weight I will have more self worth or if I have a nice home or car than I will have self worth." But that's not true. If we recognize that our worth is all a gift from the grace of God then will we be virtuous women.

This week will be a busy one for me. I will spending all night tonight packing up my apartment. I'm going to try and move by Friday so maybe I can get it all done. I don't live in that big of an apartment so it shouldn't take me too long to get it done. I'm really excited about this next stage because that is getting my that much closer to me purchasing a new home. I'm excited and a little nervous about it but I think it's the best decision. But other than that, not much is going on.