Friendship...

Well long time no type! I have been way busy these last couple days with a lot of different things. I have been saying some goodbyes lately and that has made me think about the meaning of friendships and the role they have played in my life.

In elementary school I didn't have a lot of friends. I was the girl that was an outsider and sometimes I was the easy target to pick on. I was contanstly looking to escape the walls of my classrooms because I wanted to be home with my Mom, the best friend a girl could have, at least in my case ;). I thought this was how life was. I had some friends at the dance studio, but that was only a once, or twice, a week gig. I was glad to see 5th grade graduation come and go.

In middle school things changed, for the better. I started making friends, a good bit of them. I realized that maybe it was me all along. I wasn't giving people a chance, I wasn't willing to accept the blame of being "friendless". I loved my middle school friendships, they were exactly what you would expect of girls at that age. We talked about crushes, classes, and much more. I was content with being a follower and going with the flow. I wasn't very out going and pretty much kept to myself. It wasn't until 8th grade on the 1st. day I decided to be someone different. I decided I was going to be that outgoing girl. I was going to love everyone and be talkative and speak my mind. That was the day I met Maggie Smith. I quiet girl who sat right behind me in our Science class. She didn't say a word, but I knew that she was new at the school. I told myself now your chance to be that "outgoing" person you want to be so bad. I turned around and with a confident voice said, "Hi my name is Morgan what is yours?"....and that was the beginning. Maggie and I are like sisters now time nor distance can break us apart. We have gone through so much together in our 11yr. friendship. She has taught me so much about how to be a friend.

In high school more friendships were made, but it was here were I learned what it is like to lose friends. I was so mad at God. He had given me great friends and now I was watching those friendships fall apart and I was partially to blame. I would ask God why He gave me these friends if I was just going to lose them only a little while later. A good friend of mine at the time named Erin Clements told me that God puts people in our lives for certain reasons and that maybe those were the people I needed at that time and I needed new people now. I took to heart what she said and I have carried it with me since. I know God knows what we need and when we need it and that applies to friendships more than anything. High school brought me a circle of friends that I will never forget. We were always together we even made up a name..."Underground Freaks". We weren't freaks, but it stood for that we didn't have to be showy about our friendship or how we had fun or even got crazy in our own ways. It was our fun fact of knowledge. I will remember that group forever. Thanks to Maggie Smith, Carlie Wright, Sally Dunbar, Delaney Harris, Jusin Lamb, David Moak and Michael Anderson for being the best group of friends a girl could have!

I guess we are at the college phase of my friendship post ;). College brings a new type of friendship. You now breath, sleep, eat, and work with your friends. I made so many wonderful friends in college to list them all would be crazy. I had an amazing Hall that I lived on...Middle Howard!!! We were all so close. It was with those girls that I experienced one of the worst things...a death of a friend. When your in college you don't think of death, well at least the death of a girl your age. Her name was Brittany Fogg, she was pretty, smart, loving, faithful, and a friend. She was killed on the way to drop off her boyfriend's Valentine's day present. When I found out the news I sat there with her roomate and another one of our friends just crying. I didn't understand...I wasn't supposed to. I remember being so alone, it was before Nate got there. He knew she had been in an accident bc we had gotten a call from her roomate. I was a chaplain and an RA so I was told before the girls on the hall. I remember waiting in the parking lot with Carlie and Maggie, we all went to college together along with Justin and Michael. I was standing there in the parking lot and Michael came up and gave me a hug. We hadn't been talking a lot lately and I felt our friendship kinda slipping away, but in that moment I was so thankful for him. He held me until Nate got there. I thought hurt would never go away, but it did and each day it got better. I have learned to cherish my friends and whatever relationship we have.

I have had many friends over the years and most of them I am still in contact with. I love my friends! They have all meant something different in my life. They saved me, from a life of whose knows what. God has blessed me so much through these people and I hope, if they haven't been mention by name, that they atleast know who they are!

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."
- Anais Nin

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather is one of those things that give value to survival."
- C. S. Lewis

"No love, no friendship, can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever."
- Francois Mocuriac