Appreciating Who People Are Becoming

One of the hardest things about coming home for the holidays is that each time I exit the tollway at Lovers Lane and pull onto Purdue, I have grown and experienced things that have shaped my outlook and one way or another, I am not the same person and my friends, they're not the same either. Am I usually drastically different, no, but I've lived stories that my friends in college station and Norman haven't. My community is shaping me and my interactions with my friends and community at Baylor are something that no one can understand except those who are in the middle of it with me. It has taken me heading back to Dallas a couple of times over the past three semesters to begin to learn to appreciate my friends for who they are becoming. This means that I have to change my expectations and learn to listen to their stories and realize that the way that we view things might not be the exact same. My experience in my fraternity at Baylor, KOT, is going to be totally different than my friend Will's experience with Sig Ep in Norman and the things that I love about Baylor probably don't translate directly into Will's experiences at OU.

It is a hard lesson to wrap your head around because growing up with my best friends from HP we all did the same things with each other. All of our stories were woven together and we saw life the same way because for the most part our experiences were paralleled with one another. Learning to appreciate people for who they are becoming is key to maintaining friendships that you have had for years even after spending large spans of time apart.

I have been unbelievably blessed to walk shoulder to shoulder with men of great faith throughout high school and college and this is so important because our common bond is not something that is fleeting. Our stories don't have to sound the same because I know that at the heart of our friendships is Christ and the common love for Christ among a group of friends gives friendship more depth than any common hobbies or stories ever could. I am able to pick back up with the guys I did life with in high school so well because I know that at the end of the day we are brothers in Christ and our love for Him is what we built our friendship on.

I'm not encouraging you to watch your friends make destructive decisions and not get involved in their lives, but what I am encouraging you to do is to realize that no one is perfect and just because your friendship with someone doesn't feel exactly the same as it always has doesn't mean it can't still be something great. If we stop expecting people to complete us and make us totally satisfied and approach each day with more grace than criticism I think that we would be shocked at how much richer all of our relationships would be. For the group of friends you are doing with right now, on the daily, be intentional about building then up as brothers and sisters in Christ so that one day if you aren't roommates and the days of fraternity life seem like a lifetime ago, you will have a bond that is eternal because Jesus is forever.