working on it...

So here's the thing. I don't make friends well. I don't mean that in the "nobody likes me... guess I'll go eat worms" sort of way. I mean that I don't know how to build new close relationships that aren't already established. This comes easier for social people, or so it seems. I'm not social. I really have to work at being so at times. And when being social isn't the convenient thing to do, it's even harder. I'm in a position where my room mates and I get along, but I'm realistically in such a "different place" in my life than they are that it makes spending quality time with them difficult. When I'm able to be home, they're busy cramming for tests and finishing projects, which means we might be able to "spend time together" (be in the same room) but we're not really hanging out. When that's the case, I'd usually rather go hang out with Rob and the guys who have nothing else to do but hang out when there's not something on the schedule. This makes me seem distant from my room mates, which I realize and they resent at times. So then I think to myself that I need to find people (namely girls) who are in roughly the "same place" in life as I am who I can build closer relationships with. But the problem then becomes that those people are so dang busy that there isn't much time in their schedules where we can build those relationships. Nena and Holly, for example. Love, love, love both of them, but they are two of the most thinly stretched people I know already. Nena and I, luckily, seem to have a cool connection, despite the fact that we don't have much hang-out time. And Holly and I have really gotten closer since we became each other's prayer partners. I really enjoy the times she and have spent talking and praying together. Although there is a great deal of truth to my feelings of lacking close friends right now, I think part of it is also me being jealous of what the guys are able to have. Not a bad, viscious kind of jealous; just that I see what they have and realize how good it is and wish that I could have the same. They all are able to take lunch-time off on any given day of the week and eat together and have great conversations. None of us girls have that luxury. Holly's in Jacksonville for work, and she and Nena are teachers anyway, which means no off-site lunch ever. And I don't leave the office for lunch. And my girls at the house have school. So basically, that'll never happen. And then there's the fact that the guys seem to be able to spend all this time together in the evenings just hanging out. The guys who are still students I think just don't care about studying as much as my girls do, so that frees up some of their time! But other than that, Rob has the opportunity to live with Mike, who also isn't a student, so they don't have homework, so they get to sit around and play x-box. Now don't get me wrong, I have no interest whatsoever in playing x-box. That's not the point. I don't know what my point is anymore. I'm just rambling. I guess I'm just asking that God would ordain the appropriate friendships for me, and reveal to me what those friendships are. I know that developing close friendships is necessary for my mental and emotional health, and I know that if I don't work on that now, it will be much easier to neglect once I'm married. Marriage is something I am desperately looking forward to, but I also know that I need to keep the rest of my life in balance, as well. This seems to be harder for me than some people, so I'm doing my best to cover it in prayer and seek God's will in it. I covet your prayers, as well. Lift me up as you think of it. Thanks.

grace and peace