The Story of a Friendship

Has there ever been a time where a new friend has walked into your life, and you just know the friendship is a gift from God? 

This seems to be happening more and more lately, and I just am blown away by how much God loves us and desires for us to have community. 

Meet Sherry:

I'm going to tell the story of how I met Sherry, because it's a pretty unique one. 

In order to be told fully, I have to go back to a friend of mine, Jorge. Jorge and I went to college together, and we both were in the same major (Math/Econ, aka the cool kids on campus). Our major was fairly small for our ginormous college, so a handful of us got pretty close as we baaarely made it through our last Math and Econometrics courses. 

We would spend hours cramming for those midterms and finals, and making up answers to homework assignments that we were lucky if we understood the question correctly. 

In those hours, not once did faith come up in conversation. I certainly wasn't living as a Christian would at that time, so why would it?

About 6 months after college, I started falling in love with Christ. I didn't want to keep the news to myself, but I wasn't quite sure how to share it with others. So I did the most logical thing I could think of: I started posting about it on facebook. 

And each time I'd post something in those first few months, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about the response that it would receive. 

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about what people would think. 

I was always so excited when someone I didn't expect would "like" or comment on a status. It was a reminder to me of how God is so much bigger than I think He is, capturing so many other hearts each and every day. 

Jorge was one of those people that consistently "liked" those comments. And after the two of us finally connected for lunch one day, I found out that God had been pursuing Jorge's heart since graduating, just like He had been with mine. 

Jorge invited me to a Bible talk that he was leading, and there, I met a senior who was applying for a position at the company where I worked. 

Her name was Sherry. 

I told Sherry that I would love to help her in any way that I could, so we exchanged a few e-mails in the week that followed. But months went by, and I didn't hear anything from her. Nor did I see her lovely self at work, so I assumed something else was in store for her. 

That is, until my boss mentioned that we had hired someone new in our department. This was months after that Bible talk, so I had to dig into my archived e-mails to double check before realizing that Miss Sherry herself was about to join my team!

I was so excited to have another Christian on my team. I loved that Sherry brought her Bible to work like I did, and was so inspired by her bible verse sticky notes that she posted around her cubicle. 

I was encouraged by the confidence that Sherry carried. It was so apparent to me that her identity was solidified in Christ, that she lived her life to bring Him glory. She was most definitely an inspiration to me. 

Little did I know, it wasn't in God's plan for us to work together for very long. 

(You can read all about my God driven career change here.)

On our very first lunch date, I told Sherry that I had given my notice and would be leaving in the next few weeks. 

As God would have it, that was our first of many lunch dates. 

Out of all of my coworkers from within my department at my last job, Sherry, the one who I spent the least amount of time working with, is the one who I have kept in touch with the most. 

It felt good to leave knowing that another Christian was filling my shoes. And it felt really good to leave with an excellent example of what it looks like to bring Christ into your workplace.

(Thanks, Sherry!)

My new cubicle is now covered in Bible verse sticky notes.