Friendship: One of Life's Greatest Blessings

One of my best friends got married last weekend.  Frances Squyres (formerly known as Frances Thomas) and I met sometime during 2nd or 3rd grade.  We did not attend the same school until high school, but we were best buds at church.  Honestly, we did not have much of a choice, being that we were the only 2 girls in our grade, but I am pretty sure we would have chosen to become friends anyway.  We made so many memories together during our growing up years.  We went off to camp for the first time together, stepped on a yellow jacket's next for the first time together, went to youth group for the first time together, and went off to college together.  We cheered and ran track together during high school and spent every Sunday together at church and youth group.  Frances has always been such a big part of my life, and I am so thankful to have a close friend that I have shared so much of my life with.  I was so honored to be a part of her wedding and was so blessed to have her as a part of mine.  We have shared so many milestones together in life, and Frances was also the first friend that came to visit me in the hospital after I had Reives!

As I mentioned earlier, Frances and I went off to college together.  We both attended The University of Georgia, and we truly had the time of our lives!  During our freshmen year at UGA, we met two girls, Lauren Futrell from Atlanta and Gail Dunn from Nashville, TN.  The four of us immediately became friends.  We attended all of the UGA football and basketball games together, played flag football together, ate together at the dining hall, bowled together, danced crazy dances together....you get the point!  During our sophmore year, Frances and I roomed together and Lauren and Gail roomed together in the dorms.  Our friendship continued, and our junior year, we all four lived together in an apartment......TC 45 (Towneclub #45)!  My favorite college memories happened in TC 45.  We had an amazing, crazy, fun time, and we all came out better friends than before we lived together.  I mean, we truly functioned like a family. We bought groceries together, cooked together, prayed together, laughed together, and cried together.  Friends like those three are hard to come by.

I am so thankful that we all four are still so close.  It was such a special weekend to have all four of us together for Frances's wedding.  When we get together, it really feels like no time has passed.  I think we all do a pretty good job at keeping up with each other's lives, and I am not just talking about the surface things like jobs and houses.  I am talking about the things that only your closest friends care to know about.  You know, the things like how your feelings got hurt by what a parent told you at parent teacher conferences or about how down you feel after moving to a new place or how God is teaching you to be more like him by forgiving someone who has hurt you.  These are the girls I call on when life gets tough.  These are the girls I call on when life gets exciting.  I love these girls, and I feel so incredibly blessed to have them in my life.  I just wish they would move closer....New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles are a little bit too far!

I love my TC 45ers!