I grew up with lots of christians in my life, starting in my own family. My dad was a pastor until I was in middle school. I accepted Jesus into my life at a very young age and was baptized by my dad when I was 11. Throughout middle school and high school, I was very involved with my church youth group and my high school athlete ministry. These two groups encompassed basically all of my closest friends growing up. They had always been a part of my life. But it wasn’t until college that I realized the community I had in high school wasn’t intentionally built around Christ. We all went to youth group and the high school athlete ministry, but we never lived out our faith together. I quickly learned that I needed to find a community in college that did.

In high school I found myself gravitating toward friendships with guys. I resonated more with activities they did and what they talked about. Since then, I’ve come to realize it was a deeper issue of me not wanting to be vulnerable with other girls. The first time I could remember being vulnerable with other girls was at a Christian ministry’s fall retreat my sophomore year in college. After our time gathered as just women, I felt the Holy Spirit nudge me to be open with things in my past. So many of the girls were so open with sin struggles and it encouraged me to do the same. Three other girls and I found a spot to share more with each other and I’ll admit, I was scared. But the girls I shared with were so, so sweet and listened so well. They shared things from their own lives too and we were able to pray together and encourage one another. After doing that, I realized it wasn’t as scary as I thought it was going to be. I found relief from the things I had been holding on to and they were received with love from those three girls.

Through this experience, I grew closer with these girls and it helped me further my friendships with them. Our lives began to overlap in ministry, hobbies, and friend groups, and we started doing life together. We went grocery shopping, attended our Chirstian ministry gatherings together, went to church together, hosted each other to make meals, had filling conversations, and shared lots of laughs. As I spent more and more time with these women, I found that friendships with girls weren’t that bad after all.

The community of girls Chirstian community has given me has pushed me towards Christ. Practically this means confessing sin to them, wrestling through and resolving conflict in a healthy way, building others up with encouragement, and being held accountable with my actions publicly and privately. Part of my community my junior and senior years looked like living in a Christian house with nine other girls. You can bet there is conflict that arises but we all fight for our relationships and fight for the mission of glorifying God. Relationships with girls are worth it. I am so glad the Lord has brought these awesome women into my life to build the kingdom with them.