Cinnamon swirl smiles

Oh, the preciousness of my giveaway this week!  Can we all just agree that being in middle school is HARD?  So hard, that I imagine most of us north of 14 years old could not be paid enough cash money to return to middle school.  And then let’s top off middle school with being a girl in middle school.  I feel I have a tiny leg to stand on given that I was once a girl and am now parenting a boy middle schooler, with a little sister coming up behind him.  Girls that age just bring the drama.  All the time.  I am actually learning it starts earlier, but I seem to remember it heating up something fierce in the halls of middle school.

So this week’s giveaway was to the sweetness that is a 7th-grade girl whose parents just moved her 5 hours from the only hometown she has ever known.  Guys, she is the new girl in 7th grade.  The Powerball lottery that just sent the country crazy?  All 1.6 billion of it?  Nope, hard pass on all of that if I had to be the new girl in 7th grade.  I heard she was having a hard time meeting people, and my heart broke.  I know that soon she will make new friends and all will be well, but oh!–this in-between time is so achingly hard.  When I heard about it, I instantly wanted to make her bread, cinnamon swirl bread actually, because I thought it might make her smile.  I hope it did.  I had good reports.

It is amazing what friends can do for you in the world, isn’t?  They help you feel safe and rooted.  I have some amazing friends in my life that never cease to surprise me.  Their texts, gifs, and antics make me laugh through the highs and the lows.  They comfort me, they inspire me, they challenge me, and they cheer for me.  And I get the privilege of doing the same for them as well.  These are women that I have worked with, have done life with, have created amazing things and memories with.   We have watched each other’s less glamorous moments as well, and we still think life is way, way better with each other than without.  I marvel at my “luck” (God’s planning and loving-kindness) in finding these amazing people–they are simply, my people, for whom I am so grateful.

We were made for this very type of belonging and fellowship.  It is part of our design and we feel its absence so acutely.  So that is really my prayer that went with the bread this week.  It was a prayer for belonging and deep friendships for this sweet young girl.  She deserves that.  We all do.