.ten years.

this summer marks ten years.

- ten years since i graduated high school (scary!)
- ten years since i moved 8 hours from home to go to college
- ten years since i met my best friend from college




and here alisha and i sit, 10 years later in boston, celebrating our friendship.

she and her husband are living here for the better part of 2 years and i decided i needed to come check out new england this week. as we sat talking over guacamole & chardonnay, we discovered that it has indeed been ten years since we met.

we met in colby hall at tcu. we lived 4 doors down and we were both dutch. we had both lived in california. our families were weirdly connected (which happens when you're dutch) and our lives became intertwined on day one at tcu in the freshman dorms. i was 17, she was 18 and in our naivety, we had no idea what the next 10 years of our lives would bring.

COLLEGE - freshman dorms, fraternities & sororities, meeting ronnee (our 3rd muskateer) psychotic roommates, boyfriend break-ups, studying abroad in spain (another blog!), a great church, alisha meeting her husband (ryan) at a tcu/army football game, living with the volleyball girls in sweet community.

THE NEXT 4 YEARS - both of us moving back to california, planning alisha's wedding and move to hawaii, ryan being deployed to afghanistan, my first years of teaching spanish and a very broken relationship, alisha going to grad school in new york city, alisha & ryan moving to washington dc following ryan's deployment, my career change into ministry.

THE PAST FEW YEARS - tough first years of marriage for many of our dear friends, tough first years in ministry for me, ryan's acceptance into business school and a move to boston for them, my decision to quit young life staff and finish grad school in pasadena.

so here we are - all caught up, 10 years later. no longer 17 and 18 year old girls, but 27 and 28 year old women with ten years of laughter, tears, heartache, joy, pain, hope and promise as our credentials. we are together this weekend in boston - never dreaming either of us would be here, legitimately amazed by God's good grace in our lives and wondering at how He truly does hold us in the palm of His hand. i literally sit here and type this in awe of how He's carried us from those girls to these women, carefully molding and shaping us each step of the way.

so tonight i raise a toast to alisha,



to our sisterhood, to the next ten years that will, God-willing, find us both living in california with husbands and babies, working in ministry and social work, still in awe of who He is and how He continues to shape us. thank you for your faithful friendship. my love for you is unwavering.