“I lost a really good friend about a year after Russ and I got married. Growing up we were kind of like brother and sister and super close in high school. He was probably one of my best friends. He found himself through God and became super faithful. He became very serious about it in college. This is just me being a butt hole, haha, but I had a hard time believing he was that happy and that joyful. It came across as fake to me at first because I had always known him and it was a different side of him that I hadn't seen before. We had a conversation that made me uncomfortable before he passed away...One of the questions he asked was if Russell and I had found God together. I took it the wrong way. I was like, ‘I know you, I love you, but I'm really having a hard time understanding where you're coming from’. I hate that, now, because he died suddenly...one of the last conversations I had with him was one of those heart to heart talks that could have been amazing...and I was completely closed off. When he died, I was confused, ’why would he be somebody who died?’. That just didn't seem right because it was tragic. That was hard. I spent time after that trying to understand what I was supposed to take from it. I feel strongly that he was trying to teach me something and I wasn’t open to it at the time. There were years that I couldn't go to church without crying,I couldn't even step foot in there. I mean that's not what I thought would have come from him passing away. That's where I felt overwhelmed. For a long time he was kind of my link to my faith. I'm still mourning him in many ways. But I feel like he’s taught me so much about being open. I truly believe, now, that he was being real, that he was really that joyful and really had found that much love, peace and joy. That opened me up a lot to trying not to assume that I know what's going on with people. I try to understand and patient, meet people where they're at, be curious and open instead of suspicious and disbelieving.” #sunrise #sunrisegoal #sunriseinterview #reconnectingwithfriends #haveanopenheart #lifelessons #losingafriend #growinginfaith #meetpeoplewheretheyareat @love.strong.organization (at Tallahassee, Florida) https://www.instagram.com/p/CDzRw3ul4hm/?igshid=p83gxzhiya54
