The spiderweb of one true friend

A day of rest has finally come to lay itself at my feet. I may have worked the morning away, but the night was filled with Christmas card addressing, catching up on Gilmore Girls, and getting some much needed me time in. As the day comes to a close, however, I find myself pondering life in the most peculiar way. My eyes flitted across the silver binding of a dusty book on the shelf. I find myself in flashback mode to the time I received my first ever Bible from one of my greatest friends Melissa. As I flash forward to now I realize that if I had never met Melissa long ago in tenth grade I would definitely not be where I am or who I am in this moment of time. 

It was first semester english with Mr. Keast and I was much different back then. I lived to be different and my style of dress definitely played the biggest part in my anti social ways. No friends to speak of and I tended to live more in the world of books, however, that all changed one blistering day with something as simple as a dictionary. 

To this day I have a deeper fondness for the dictionary because on one particular day a boy by the name of Joe threw one at Melissa and told her to put it away. The sheer rudeness of this act ticked me off so much that I grabbed the dictionary back and threw it right back at him yelling, ‘Why don’t you do it yourself?’ 

And ever since then Melissa and I have been the best of friends. Like all friendships though there were seasons of quiet from each of us. Life gets crazy and too many things become more important then taking time to see each other. Yet, every time that we got through one season we would get in touch and its as if there was no quiet time in between. 

Yet, on this night I look back and see the spiderweb of connections that I have stemming from my friendship with Melissa. I have expanded my friendship circle to some amazing girls that I miss (they are adventuring their life in Colorado). I have come to know and love Christ as my Savior. I was able to experience four life changing months in Asia working to put a stop to Human Trafficking with amazing people. I was able to meet a wonderful man that loves God and became my husband only two and a half years ago. 

I am who I am because ten years ago two people saw something similar in one another and became friends. You never know what your impact will be on those who call you friend. If I never threw a dictionary at a boy named Joe then I wouldn’t be sitting here now as a Christ loving married girl named Ashley.