& along came my Best Friend =]

God is so good to me lately; I can hardly handle how much good stuff he's poured into my life over these past few months. I have found new ways to thank him each and every day. (:

God has given me so much peace and patience over these past few months. I’ve seen God create a miracle in ways I never imagined possible. I’ve physically seen God’s hand guiding my life and it’s been an incredible experience for me.

I know it’s been awhile since I’ve blogged so I’m going to use this time to tell you guys about what’s been going on with me the past few months and talk to you about what God’s been doing to me. & also I'm going to talk to you about my best friend. (:

Okay so after graduation at Master’s last year I was pumped and ready to go for God and start looking into what it was that God was calling me into for the coming semester. I started out fine and was ready to go, but then a wall quickly went up between God and I because of all the junk that instantly starting filling my life. I started to go through a lot of crap with people from the past and started to deal with things in ways I shouldn’t have. I knew I wasn’t at a good place in my life.

I got extremely hurt this summer and I kind of took it the completely wrong way than I should have. I have been hurt in the past, but this summer I felt like was just my breaking point where I was like, will the hurt ever just stop? I finally said "okay God, if you want to keep letting me get into situations that hurt me then I’ll move on and pretend I’m okay with it." & that’s exactly what I did. I went on for the next few months saying I was perfectly fine and I started to do some stupid stuff and talk to people I shouldn’t have been talking to when in all honesty I knew deep down all I was doing was trying to fill a hole. At church and around my good friends, I put on a fake face and pretended I was fine, because inside I was empty and alone.

I specifically remember one night in general where I heard God just gently whisper my name when I was about to go out with a friend who I knew would have ended in a bad situation and that’s when I was like I can’t do this anymore I can’t pretend. When I heard that I felt like a little girl when her daddy gets home from work getting ready to just run into her daddy’s arms because she missed him so much! I was so longing to hear God’s voice say my name; I was so desperate that when I did I just became so overwhelmed. I said God I’m not going to do this anymore, I can’t. So I canceled my plans and God said to just go home and be with my family and I did. It was incredibly special to me to get to spend time with them, because I felt like I had started to lose that.

God broke down a lot of pride that day by simply just saying my name. He’s that powerful that’s all he has to do to get us back on track. <3

Anyways, we went through this time of not talking. I had a tough time processing it all last year, but finally I was willing to let it go and forgive him and ask for his forgiveness for some things.  And I told God that it was in his hands and I trusted him, because he knew how much Zach really did mean to me as a best friend.

So, I went on with life and I started to believe that it was really over with us and I’d never get that chance to be friends with him again. Little did I know that God had something bigger in store for me that I didn’t see coming.

Over the next few weeks Zach ended up messaging me on Facebook just to say hi and see how i was doing, which was random. I honestly thought nothing of it and I said God I don't know what this is, but I don't want it in my life right now.

Then one day I knew God was up to something. Zach began talking to me about a lot of crap he was in at that time and I instantly shut down and was like I want nothing to do with him. But, God kept pushing things and started to talk to me about it and I was like God I want nothing to do with it and I just want to live my life for me. That’s when God said to me “Hmm that’s funny I thought living your life as a Christian was about living for me and you were supposed to go out and help those in need.” So I said okay God, but I’m not making anything happen. If this is what you want, you set it all up. I’m not going to do a thing. If you want something to happen then work a miracle and have him come to me. (I was very much a prideful brat during this time, because I was scared to get hurt again. Even though God said to trust him)

So I finally started to see nothing happening and I was like oh good maybe it’s just not going to happen. Until one day out of the blue, my doorbell rang and my mom answered the door and I walked out into my kitchen to find Zach standing there. At the time my jaw kind of dropped and every emotion possible filled my mind. I had seen him about two weeks before when I ran into him at the carnival and when i saw him there he was a mess compared to when he was standing in my kitchen. I honestly saw no hope in him that night, my exact thoughts were he will never take God seriously and he doesn't really give a crap about his life...anyways that night i realized it had been almost two years since he had stepped foot in my house. When I walked out there I just looked at him at first in complete shock and I couldn’t get any words out of my mouth to say. Until finally he saw me and came and gave me a hug and I still could hardly speak about what was happening. We stood in the kitchen talking about life. He stayed for a little while and then left and when he left I got so emotional so fast. I was praying and I said God you really meant what you said…and He said I told you to just trust me.

Zach ended up apologizing for everything and came to me and said I need to get my life in order and I need your help. Instantly I felt like God was saying ‘go and lead him back to me…push him until he feels like he can’t be pushed anymore and even after that just don’t give up on him, ever.’ So from that day on I did…I said "Zach, the past is the past and it’s over and done with. The friendship we have now is a clean slate. I’m going to push you to follow after God and I’m going to be annoying so, be ready." (:

And so it all started, I pushed him and pushed him towards God in every way I knew possible. I begged him to come to church with me he came once in July and from that weekend on i annoyed him every weekend. There were times I thought he was never going to talk to me again after some of the stuff I was saying to him, but God told me to keep going with it and somehow Zach still kept talking to me and pressing into what I had to say. Another thing that happened was I was still very hesitant to come back for a second year at GMC, but when Zach came back into my life God said to me “if he can get his life in order then why can’t you?” So that next day I sent in my application. (:

It came down to September 23^rd, I texted Zach and I said "so when are you coming to church with me" and he said "when I feel like it." And that’s when I switched and said "I told you I was going to push you and I told you that this isn’t going to be easy, so either start taking it seriously or nothing is going to change." I didn’t get an answer for a good three maybe four hours after that. Until finally later that night I got a text saying ‘when are we going to church this weekend?’  I had to be at the church the next day by eight in the morning and I was going to be there until nine at night. Zach was like "I’ll come" and he did, but not only that, but on the way home he said, "I think I’m going to come tomorrow too." And he did. (:

That night when he got home God started to speak into him again and tell him things about his future and as we were talking about it I just began to cry, because I’ve been waiting to witness this for such a long time that I had become so overwhelmed with what was happening right before my eyes I almost couldn’t believe it. I just began to thank God for Zach and for the impact I had with him. & then Zach began to come every weekend and I saw him pressing into God more than I had ever seen before and I loved it and thanked God over and over again for what was going on in his life.

Finally last weekend Zach said "I want to show I’m serious about this and I want people to know that I’m not kidding when I say that I want to turn my life around I want to actually do it." & the next day they had a baptism and I told him he should do it and he said ‘I think I want to.’ The next night I was an emotional basket case because of how much God was doing in his life that I just began to weep over all the countless years of praying for him. When it came time for the baptism I looked over at him and he was so nervous and I said to him "you can take one person up there with you to help baptize you" and he said "will you come with me?" And me being me began to cry and I said yes and as we walked up to the tank to baptize him I felt the presence of God in a way I have never felt. I felt like God was smiling ear to ear when he walked into that tank. & the devil was freakin out hard core that for once he wasn't claiming victory over Zach's life, the victory was God's like it's always should be. When I got to baptize him with Pastor Gerry I was so honored to be standing by his side that day and be a part of it with him. It was a process for me that was a long one, but a very powerful one. (: God showed me that night that my years of praying paid off and he just kept saying ‘all I told you to do was trust me’ (:

I could not be any happier than I am right now. God has been working through me in so many ways these past few weeks and I am so happy for that. God’s given me new eyes to see things and one of the biggest things that I am incredibly thankful for that he gave me, was a second chance to be best friends with Zach again. It seriously means the world to have that boy back in my life and to see how much God is shining through him lately is so inspirational. (: God’s doing some amazing things in his life and I am incredibly blessed to even be a part of it.

He is such a blessing in my life and I honestly don’t know what I’d do without him. I’m glad God answered my prayer to bringing someone in my life to help me and I’m thankful that the answer to my prayer was Zach, because I wouldn’t want anyone else as my best friend. (:  I’m extremely excited to watch God work in him over these next few months and especially years, it’s going to be amazing I know that. I thank God every day for him, and I'm thankful to be able to call him my best friend once again. I really do love him so so much! (: