Testimony 6- Friends & Other Influences

I have one more stop before my testimony gets a little crazy for lack of a better word. So I've graduated from high school and all of my close friends (Tracy, Rachel, Christine, and Mindie) have gone away to college. I'd been abandoned! (Or at least that's how I felt). The Lord continued bringing cool people into my life. While I was working at Turf Tek I started talking to Renee Rowe (now White) and we got super close. She was great and we had a ton of fun together. Then I met B-rad (Brad Bogers) and we instantly became close. It was so weird but we just kinda accepted and "got" each other. He's truly a brother to me. We literally started hanging out everyday and just being goofy but having amazing conversations about the Lord and what our struggles were. It was cool. The last person (although there are SO many more!) who played a huge part was Andrea Perez. She would try so hard to get me to join them for College and Careers and go to bible study at their house. I just wanted no part of it. She would call me all the time. I'm thankful for the roles of these people and how they (especially B-rad and Andrea) would play such a huge part in my spiritual life later on down the road!

At home... I have to touch on this because it was huge. I've tried to be very delicate with the specifics that I share in order to preserve the character of certain people. There was someone in my life during this time who I had once been close with and now was not. They had been in and out of jail as well as other things which directly affected me and I'd had to deal with which was hard. My friends had been my rock and I've now learned (Jer 17) that my strength needed to come from the Lord alone. I know this is a bit vague but God allowed me to endure some pretty difficult situations in regards to this person and it's cool because about 10 years later, I was able to use that to minister to another young girl. SO COOL!

I should really start the next part of my life but I'm just exhausted and not prepared to tackle that yet. I'm really praying through that because it's a time in my life that I don't want to go back to!