Friends

Dear World,

My wonderful, wonderful, friend Delaney Aydel gave me an idea on what i should write on my next blog post. She only just gave me this idea about 5 minutes ago and i would like to write my post before i forget what I've thought about. (Forgive me if this seems kinda scattered. I'm on the phone with Delaney at the moment, listening to her rant about her frustration on downloading programs. Quite funny, but slightly distracting.)

Friends. Well, there are different classifications about friends. There are, of course, friends. Then there are best friends, ok friends, good friends, really good friends, the i'll trust this friend with my life friend, the i love you friend but is only just a friend and is basically like a brother/sister friend, and, of course, the i love you friend but i'm too shy to tell you that i really love you so I'll just pretend that i don't friend.

I'm not going to talk about different types of friends. I was just pointing something out. lol. You know how you are supposed to have God in your relationship with your husband? It's just as equally imoportant for you to have god in your friends. But you can't pick and choose your friends based on if they're Christian or not to find god in the friendship. Well, you can pick or choose your friends based on if they're Christian, but only a few show God through it. Let me give you a couple examples.

Take Delaney for instance. Out of the 5 weeks I was at SAMBICA I only saw her for 2 and yet i got the closest to her. Why? Because throughout the 2 weeks we were together we constantly were showing Jesus to each other through ourselves. We were the teen models of what it's like to follow Jesus and we were always there for each other and God was constantly revealing God to each other through ourselves. Last day, she was the first one by my side when I completely broke down in pain and misery. She didn't have to understand, she didn't know the half of it, but she knew that what was wrong was serious and she didn't ask questions. Just, held me and let me cry on her shoulder. Since then, I've talked to her most out of the people at SAMBICA and we keep learning more and more about each other and God keeps showing himself to us through each other.

Another example. Sarai Dominguez. Delaney jokes with me often that I menchen her in almost every post. Maybe some of you (maybe family and church people) know her as Pluto in my blog. She was a mentor from camp. There's something different between a mentor and a councilor. A councilor... well, you really only see them for a week. Well, not even. More like 6 days. But when you're with them you're always going from activity to activity and everything is crazy crazy crazy, fun all the time. But a mentor, you're with them for 3 weeks. Sometimes, 24/7, based on the program. You're basically with them all the time. Either working or hanging out. 3 weeks is a long time. You tend to see the worst, best, and most broken state you could be in in the other ELITEs. Pluto saw, THE WORST of me, the beeest of me, and the most broken state I've ever been in. I talked to Pluto almost every day. After I was crying on Delaney's shoulder on the last day, I was crying on Pluto's. For some reason me and Pluto got really close. I remember random things from the many talks we had. Like that she knew my kids were gonna grow up to be preachers, and that she predicts I'm going to be an ELITE mentor, and that she's gonna stalk and call me everyday to remind me to read my bible. She's not a stalker, that's for sure. The one thing that makes me love Pluto so much is I've never been able to fool her with walls or disguises or anything else I use to try and block people out from knowing the real me. She saw through that immediately. Which is what I love about her. It's what made her advice to me always so helpful. And what made God work in our relationship. Her strange gift of X-Ray vision is what has made us so close.

When God shows through in how he works in a relationship with a friend, you know it's special. You may both be Christian, but that doesn't mean you work well together as friends. Your friends shape who you are and you need to hold those select few as close as possible. Because they will have the biggest impact on your life. And if you don't have those select few yet, you will. If you open up to it and allow yourself to be vulnerable.

Also....notice how my description of Pluto and I's relationship was 3x as long as Delaney's and I's? haha. I don't love Pluto more, just had more to say about her. I love the crap outta Delaney though. haha

In Him,
Maddie