My Social Media-less Life

Today marks 10 years since I started at my first job in Kansas City, Missouri. Because I’ve had issues with iCloud and Dropbox over the years, I don’t have any pictures from 2014, but I know I took a lot of them. So this picture of my roommate and me taken by a photographer friend in 2017 shows us in… strangely, our most real relationship with each other?

Over the years in Kansas City, the Lord has blessed me with more friendships than I ever really thought possible. Growing up, I had few, if any, friends. In hindsight, I know now that the Lord was preparing me for all of the friendships I have now… as well as preparing me for living a life surrendered to Him.

It wasn’t until November of 2014 that my roommate and I moved in together, but we had known each other for about a year when I moved here. We weren’t close, but when we were partnered to be “battle buddies” my first quarter of Bible school, I don’t think either of us knew what God had in store for us. When she told me her parents were going to be buying a house and she was looking for roommates, the Lord specifically told me, “If she makes the offer to you, say yes.”

And living with her has been one of the most invigorating and rewarding things I’ve ever done. It’s also definitely been one of the most challenging. We are literally night and day, “queen and jester”. Aside from Jesus and our church, we have very little in common. We sometimes even disagree on political things! But we always come to the conclusion that peace in our house is better than being right, and I appreciate that about our friendship.

Backstory time!

I don’t talk about this a lot, but the Lord and I did A LOT of “surrender exercises” while I was growing up. The few friends I did have were always so confused as to why I didn’t watch certain things or listen to the same music as them. I don’t know if they made fun of me for it, but I do know none of them are my friends now and I haven’t heard from any of them in…. years. So… they weren’t the best of friends to have anyway… or at least not for me.

I wish them well and I pray for them when I think of them, but I haven’t gone out of my way to try to find any of them in some time. If we do ever connect again in the future, it was definitely the Lord that brought us back together.

But my two best friends and my roommate, they’re the real deal, and I’m glad they’ve been willing to stick around.

My bestest friend and I met in September of 2014 on the first day of Bible school. She forgot her Bible… while attending a Bible school. So I shared mine with her of course, and the rest really is history. We see each other at least once a week and love to talk about silly things WHILE talking about the deep things. Tears have been shed and life has been lived, but I know she will be there for me when I need it the most.

My “new” best friend is someone I’ve known pretty much since I became involved in the church. She doesn’t remember a lot of the friends she had at the time and vaguely remembers times when I was at her house, but… trauma will do that to a person. But I remember when I felt directed by the Holy Spirit to offer my “best friendship” to her in October of 2022… and she initially rejected it. Within the day, she texted me and apologized for the response and wanted to try again. Since I was in no way offended, we have kept up a running conversation (sometimes it runs away from us too) ever since.

All of this to say, the Lord works in mysterious ways, and Kansas City was a place for me to not only grow up, but also grow down and develop roots in the city and with people in a way that I was never really able to do anywhere else that I lived. I thank God every day for the relationships in my life, and I’m looking forward to many more years with these friends in what has become my home.