My girlfriends are the best

When I say my friends are the best, I really mean it. They are the BEST.

As an only child, I always valued my friendships, especially with other girls. I asked my mother for a little sister until I was about 13. My parents wanted other children, but for whatever unknown biological reason, it didn't happen. I surrounded myself with friends to fill that place in my life and they were my make-believe family.

Now I consider my girlfriends my family, my real-life sisters. I look back on the last ten years of my life, and outside of my relationship with Matt and God, my relationships with my girlfriends have been the most rewarding, life-changing, amazing relationships of my existence.

One of those girlfriends of mine is the fabulous Jessie. Jessie and her husband Mark were friends with Matt before we met, and they played surrogate "parents" to him when he was a bachelor (even though he's older than the both of them!).



Mark and Jessie

 When we started dating, Matt joked that I'd have to get the approval of Mark and Jessie. They are that important to him.

Over the last seven years of knowing them I have always thought (from an outsiders perspective), Jessie's life was as close to perfect as possible - great marriage, amazing friends, a beautiful home, cool clothes, a rock star life - you get the drift. So needless to say, I was intimidated of her... and then something changed that almost overnight. - I started coming to Jessie's Wives Club. 

I've written about this "club" before - it is comprised of women, some newly married, some veterans who get together twice a month to fellowship, encourage and love on each other, all in the name of helping push one another closer to our husbands and closer to God. I came one night, after the Lord had been pricking at my heart about it for months, and I fell in love with it instantly.

And then, one night at Wives Club, after the majority of the girls went home, Jessie shared her heart with me about her marriage; and as she was telling me her story about struggle and loss, and the victory that she had fought so long and hard for in her marriage, all that stupid, ridiculous insecurity of mine dropped instantly and I saw her for who she was - a wonderful, flawed human being. Just like me.

Since then, Jessie has been my girl. Like my gurl. I cannot express in the English language how much I love her, her family, her passion for life, her fiery spirit, her insatiable love for her friends.  

A few days ago, Jessie wrote something so incredibly kind about me and Matt on her blog. Read it here. It melted my heart it into a little pool of goo. It was so humbling.  And after I read it, tears streaming down my face, I thought, "I LOVE my friends. They are the best." I mean, who does that? Who writes about their friends with such kindness and then begs for prayer on their behalf?

My girlfriend Jessie, that's who! And my other girlfriends would do the same in a heartbeat. They amaze me with their love for one another and their overflowing determination for the best for their friends. I cannot imagine life outside of my community of women - they have taught me to be a better friend, wife, soon to be mom and woman of God; they are daily examples of grace and light to me.

 

 My darling girlfriends, I love you! To quote Tina Turner, you're simply the best!