This is my family, and they love me well.
Nothing can replace the ones that have watched your pimply angst slowly progress into what we hope to be adulthood. They are the people that permit a certain kind of freedom to should a loud "NOTHING" when asked what you've been up to because you're grumpy and probably hungry too. There's conditions with a big fat "un" in front of it. Intentional time is not intentional at all because entering the laundry room with intent to kick your sister's load of three dishtowels out may end with a three hour conversation about how life really is going. It's intentional with another "un" in front of it. My joy is incomplete without them, and their patience with me makes me better. They are my "them"
Yet I have been granted another place to call home, another safe zone of people that will love me through moody mornings, flippant attitudes, and any other emotion I can dish out. College friendships possess a rare intensity. An intense amount of time spent not just physically in the same place, but the shared experience of stretching and growing at a rapid, almost manic, speed. Bonds are formed and love is given alongside vulnerability because any guard you ever held becomes obsolete. Inappropriate, even. Why bother pretending to let people love you when they can do it for real?
I have experienced this love, and I promise, none of these smiling, slightly fearful-of-the-future-faces could grasp this kind of love without Jesus loving us first. I owe everything I have to The Great I AM, including these beautiful, messy, hodgepodge group of people I love so dearly.
Nothing can replace the ones that have watched your pimply angst slowly progress into what we hope to be adulthood. They are the people that permit a certain kind of freedom to should a loud "NOTHING" when asked what you've been up to because you're grumpy and probably hungry too. There's conditions with a big fat "un" in front of it. Intentional time is not intentional at all because entering the laundry room with intent to kick your sister's load of three dishtowels out may end with a three hour conversation about how life really is going. It's intentional with another "un" in front of it. My joy is incomplete without them, and their patience with me makes me better. They are my "them"
Yet I have been granted another place to call home, another safe zone of people that will love me through moody mornings, flippant attitudes, and any other emotion I can dish out. College friendships possess a rare intensity. An intense amount of time spent not just physically in the same place, but the shared experience of stretching and growing at a rapid, almost manic, speed. Bonds are formed and love is given alongside vulnerability because any guard you ever held becomes obsolete. Inappropriate, even. Why bother pretending to let people love you when they can do it for real?
I have experienced this love, and I promise, none of these smiling, slightly fearful-of-the-future-faces could grasp this kind of love without Jesus loving us first. I owe everything I have to The Great I AM, including these beautiful, messy, hodgepodge group of people I love so dearly.
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