This is a paper I wrote for a class, but it gives a rundown of my week kinda.. and i dont feel like writing more about it right now so.. here tis
This week was very long for me. Not a bad long though, it was really good. Last weekend there was a Christian conference that myself and over 90 other people from the surrounding campuses went to. Then on Monday night a bunch of my friends and I hung out in Canton at a mutual friends house. We goofed off a lot, ate Chinese food with chopsticks out of the box, and then probably the highlight of my week, we had a four hour long prophetic prayer meeting that lasted until about 2am the next morning (Tuesday also happened to be my birthday). We also had cake, which my friend Laura made for me, and ice-cream to celebrate. Wednesday in my world religions class we had a guest speaker by the name of John Ault come in and speak to the class about Christianity, I was very excited for this. To finish out my week I attended three Christian outreach concerts that were at Clarkson, SLU, and Potsdam. I also hung out afterwards until the wee hours of the morning on Friday and Saturday. All of this is to give the background for the topic of discussion. I spent a lot of time around some people that I knew but never really hung out with, didn’t really know. This may not seem out of the ordinary except for the fact that we were real.
On our way to the conference Friday, one of the travelers in my car suggested that we play the game “I have never.” I was a bit surprised at this, knowing that the game usually leads into some questions that people generally do not want to talk about, and this was a Christian group. Needless to say, the hard questions were asked. People had to delve into their past and reveal things that they had done that maybe they weren’t all too proud of. But I believe this is a good thing. This is how you get close, and how true friendships are built. Even after the two and a half hour car ride I felt like I knew these people and that we were really friends, true friends, and I felt so much closer. After the conference, on the car ride home, we got into another discussion. This time it was about what God had said to us and taught us at the conference. Both car rides required a serious amount of vulnerability, and I think that this vulnerability is what really produces good, true friendships.
Now onto Monday evening. I found myself really seeing the character of many of the people that were there that night. By just really spending time with people, caring, and spending time with God I felt closer to them. Not to mention usually at these types of things there is a lot of encouragement, and struggles get dealt with. Two of my friends one in particular, had never really opened up to people. They didn’t trust people enough to let them know what was really going on with them. Well, they opened up. There was some crying, but it was good, it was necessary. They were vulnerable. They became true friends.
Wednesday night I ended up driving to Wal-Mart with 3 friends, in which we all managed to pack into a three-seater pick up (sshh, don’t tell!!). A certain song came on the radio (it was a favorite) and the driver busted out singing. This might not seem out of the ordinary, but this person has a tendency to sometimes be self conscious, especially about singing. Let’s just say that singing is not her strongest gift from God. Even though it may not sound the best, I still absolutely love it when she does sing because it releases some vulnerability. We also got it on video, which was an even bigger surprise!
This week was amazing for me. It feels like I discovered a whole bunch of new friends, friends that are real, and friends that can be counted on. I think that many relationships in today’s society lack this vulnerability, and as a result the true friendship is non-existent. People need to be real. They need to be vulnerable. That is where the best friendships and relationships come from.
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