Jen Russum

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This girl.

I have a history of amazing girlfriends. In fact, I have the best best friends in the world.
First of all, I have a little sister. Two years younger than me. Built in best friend. I love her.

Then I have Sarah, my best friend since I moved to a new town in 4th grade. She’ll tell you we’ve been best friends since 3rd grade, but she’s wrong. It’s 4th grade. That girl can’t keep the years straight. When writing in each other’s yearbooks in 6th grade, we decided we would backpack Europe together after college. We did it. We also decided we would be roommates someday, even though we went to different colleges in different states. Did it. We got married three months apart. Maybe we’ll have babies at the same time too.

The sisters of soul. These are my college best friends. They are some of my favorite people in the world. Sometimes I want to cry because I can’t see them often enough, but then I think about how they are they are the most godly, loving, encouraging women I know and I comfort myself by remembering that I will spend FOREVER in heaven with them. Oh, and we have a book club. With t-shirts. Just thought you should know.

Since moving to Phoenix, it’s been hard to find new girlfriends. Don’t get me wrong. There are some amazing women here. But I’m older now. My friends here are older. They are married. Many of them have kids. I’m married. I’m busy. And cultivating kindred-spirit-sisterhood type friendships has been difficult. Many of my friendships here are more of double date with our husbands once a month type of friendships. And that’s a blessing. But sometimes I just want a sister-friend in Arizona…
And then one day this girl emailed me. She clicked on my blog because she saw the word “Arizona” in the title. She was also new to Arizona and was hoping to make some girlfriends in her new state. My blog was small at the time and no one had ever emailed me to introduce themselves. But Heather did. And we hit it off. She lived in Tucson, just two hours south of me. We e-mailed back and forth for months. And then in October, she came up to visit. The second I saw her face to face, I just knew. This was a GIRLfriend. Never a lull in the conversation. No awkwardness when meeting this “internet” friend in real life. Just words and laughter and love. And yes, if you meet us in person, we will be sure to tell you that we started as “online relationship.”

First date.
Last week, I made the journey down to visit Heather in Tucson. We had a lovely lunch, drove up to Mt. Lemmon for a giant cookie and hot chocolate even though we were already stuffed. We went shopping. I bought her some NERD glasses for birthday! It was a great day, but the best part was the conversation. The faith and love and honesty that flows out of this girl is amazing. We can talk about anything. I am so thankful that one day, almost a year ago, she decided to email me. Because I’ve finally found a friendship in Arizona that it deep and real and will last a lifetime! I love you, Heather!
  
Driving up Mt. Lemmon // Touching baby girl // Nerd alert // Yes, SNOW in Arizona!

Comments

  1. What a sweet friendship! I'm glad she emailed you too 🙂

    I totally hear ya' on the not many deep girlfriendship things…. I've got my college besties, but none live super close. I've also gotten close with many of my hubby's female cousins and I love them dearly– but it's just not the same! I hope blogging will bring new friends into my life too! 🙂

  2. Oh, I love this. I agree 100%. SO important to have sister friends. I am so blessed that while many of my friends are already married with children, that even though I have no kids, we all make time for each other, and do girly events. Just last weekend everyone came and stayed at my house for a pancakes and pajama party. nothing better than relaxing with the gals.

  3. that is SO sweet! I love that you met that way. 🙂 one of my dearest friends I met in the crayon section at Target. 🙂

  6. i am just now reading this and am crying, so sweet! my laptop has been down all week 🙁 thanks for such a sweet tribute! i love you so much, my friend, and i'm so blessed that we found one another! God is so good!! xo