the story of us.

everyone has a story. why they laugh, cry, smile, run, accept, hug, whisper. i love stories, and everything about them. i love listening to them, telling them, thinking about them, imagining them, making them up, everything about stories. and aside from my faith, i've decided to share the story most dear to my heart. the story of us. 

 for those of you who don't know anything about the friendship between my sister steph (left) myself and caroline (right), it's very recent. in fact, our year anniversary is coming up in December. woo hoo! anyways. caroline and steph are now juniors in high school...whoa so old. and being away from them is...so hard. i have no better words for it. but i'll start from the beginning. disclaimer: this will be long, its more for myself and reminiscing because i love memories, and it will sound like a love story, but i'm okay with that, because it is.

My sister and I have always gotten along for the most part. i always revert back to how when we were little and at daycare, steph was roughly 3 so myself around 5 and a half, at naptime i would hold her hand until she would fall asleep. i've always always considered it my job to look after steph, my entire life it's been my job. whether its trying to steer her in the right direction through adolescents or just take care of her thumb after she was stung by a bee, she is my little sister always, and it's my duty to teach her how to grow up. i'm not sure why i always felt this responsibility for her, but i have. i'm not even sure if she knows this. but she was always my priority. as i got older and thought i was cooler, and she got older and thought she was cooler, our relationship suffered a bit. more bickering, but i can count the number of times she was genuinely not speaking to me or vice versa on one hand. we are great sisters.  we share clothing, like the same music, think most of the same things are funny. sure we could talk, but i wouldn't open up to her much. but in the last year and a half, our relationship radically changed. for a year and a half prior to last December, after i started my walk with the Lord, i had been praying for my sister, and sometimes i'm sure it sounded like begging, that she would fall in love with the Lord. we grew up in a christian home, but i prayed so fiercely that she would give her life the Lord, in an intense, irreversible way. 
and in December, i watched it happen. from that time on, i've realized that my sister is my biggest answered prayer. i was blessed to witness her be born again. i watched her from death to life. i watched her heart change. i watched her fall in love. and since Christ transforms our life, it was natural that He transformed our relationship. my sister is my best friend. and although we've never had problems being sisters, it is no longer of this world. i spill my guts, shed my tears, laugh with joy, share my struggles, questions my choices and seek answers with her. i consider her better than myself in nearly every way. and i'm proud of that. she is an inspiration and encouragement without trying, and i've walked along side her for almost a year now, and that experience is one that i am beyond words thankful for.

so not only in the past year has the Lord blessed my relationship with my sister, but he also gave me another one. literally. caroline...whoa. i've never really had a best friend. i've definitely had close friends that i would always go to, but i could never pick who was the best out of them, they were all sort of at the same level i guess, and no one really knew me. caroline is my best friend. and i say that boldly and confidently. and this is the story of how we met... 

we didn't know each other at all this time last year. she came to summer camp with me, but she was in my sister's grade, and wasn't friends with my sister or in my cabin, so i never interacted with her. in the few brief encounters i can remember before our friendship, we were cordial, but we had nothing in common. or so it seemed. then after summer camp, caroline started seriously showing up at campaigners, but nothing changed. we still didn't talk. then in november a couple of significant things happened. first, we all signed up for workcrew weekend at rockbridge. second, i started talking to this boy and his best friend was carolines boyfriend at the time. the only reason this is significant is because they kept wanting to double, and we later discovered that both of us had been putting it off as long as possible because i didn't want to be in an awkward situation because we genuinely didn't know one another at all, but didn't want to tell the boys no. and as the weekend grew nearer people started asking for rides and figuring out how to get up there. about a week before, i agreed to take paris and caroline up. don't ask me how caroline got put in my car, i have no idea. i guess i offered and i guess she accepted? i don't know what prompted the conversation or how i even knew she needed a ride, but she was in my car. that friday night came, and it was a big night for me. right before i had left the house, i found out that i had gotten accepted into Virginia Tech, and i found out about a week before i was expecting. so i came to meet everyone overjoyed and freaked that i was all set for the next four years of my life. the second big thing was caroline. as we embarked from the panera lot, we were off to a bad start. we had already lost the ENTIRE caravan. i'm never on time, so i guesssssss that came into effect. but we were confident that we knew the way. paris and i had been on workcrew after all.....

we got lost. seriously lost. we were 2 hours behind everyone else, and i would completely blame paris, except that i listened to her, so that's my fault. but without those two hours, i wouldn't have gotten to know caroline. the Lord formed our relationship. i've never been more sure of anything. after arriving at rockbridge, we were inseparable, and we didn't even know why. that weekend hands down altered my life, simply because she was put in it. immediately we "fell in love" and we joke about it all the time. she reads my mind, finishes my sentences, understands when i stutter, reads my mood, gets my eye contact, cries with me, takes care of me, dreams my dreams, and cheers me on. we do life together. i couldn't ask for more. she is my best friend. so after that weekend, we got back to roanoke and nothing changed. we were hanging out literally every day after school, we couldn't get enough of each other, and i don't think we still can. it was effortless. and now she's one of the family. 

i know, you're probably blown away and thinking, "emily, it couldn't get any better than this. you have your sister and caroline, there is no way life could get any better for you." and you're wrong. because after workcrew weekend and i gained a best friend that i had never imagined, the same thing happened for them. steph started hanging out with us, and i was praying that the Lord would bless their friendship, and apparently they were too. this wasn't discovered til a couple months afterwards though, it's even written in steph's journal "i want caroline to be my best friend". and the Lord is so good. they hit it off immediately. so not only do i have two friendships rich with Christ's love, but we're all connected. caroline is a part of the family. literally. when my dad texts steph and i something, caroline gets it too. they love her. its the coolest. and now that i'm gone, even though its hard, its beautiful to know that steph and caroline have each other always. we are sisters. 

we've lead weekends and camp trips as wyldlife leaders, worked weekends, prayed and fasted all night, done contact work at the middle schools, helped girls get ready for homecoming, cried, prayed, worshiped, laughed, struggled, dreamed, squealed, loved, hugged, spent days at the lake, taken roadtrips to our prayer school, read, shared our hearts, borrowed clothes, written talks, talked about boys, chased girls at our school, stayed up way too late, crossed things off our bucket lists, rejoiced, and have walked alongside each other in our lives with Christ for the past year. they will be by my side at my wedding and known as "auntie stephie and caroline."  they've been there through it all, and i know they will continue to be. so this is for you guys. i get so happy looking back. being away from you both is hard, but i know our hearts haven't moved an inch, something i'm thankful for. you've shown me Christ's love, the real thing. thank you. words will never, ever be enough. love you sisters. hope you enjoy our story as much as i do.