freedom and friends

letters from college: the second letter

Dear College,

As I reflect on having freedom for the first time, I see the friendships that I had. I did not use my “young adult freedom” unwisely. However, I did not realize that the memories that I would look back on would have to do with my friends. I loved being able to go the class, work, and eat every meal with my friends. I loved the ability to go to the grocery store with those same people. I was blessed to have a community that wanted to do life with me, and I wanted to do life with them.

Friendships are valuable because friends will help you walk through every moment that you could not plan for yourself.

In order to make friends, I had to surrender my idea of what a “perfect” friend was. I had to lay down my fears of being hurt by “girl drama” and open my eyes to who God had placed in front of me. When I first moved to college, I was scared to make friends because I did not want to replace my high school friends nor did I want to sign myself up for necessary drama.

Once I was honest with God about how I felt about friendships, I began to see all of the sweet friends that I could make. I did not need a “perfect” friend because I was never promised to have a perfect friendship. I did not need to fear the “girl drama” because God was going to give me wisdom if those problems came up. I did not need to worry about “replacing” my high school friends because I was able to expand my community.

With my freedom in college, I was able to make friendships. College is a sweet season because you have the freedom to go do things with people. Having the time for 10 girls to go do something together is nearly impossible to schedule after college. While you have the freedom to make plans with your friends, make the plans.

My encouragement for you today is to ask God to open up your heart to friendships. Secondly, to go invite two or three people to go do something fun this weekend. The plans do not have to be extravagant, so use your freedom in college to spend time with your friends.

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You are Beloved,

Lillie Xing