Melanie Shankle

God gives us these raw, little people, and we have to form them and mold them and teach them how to operate in society. And if we get a glimpse of all the ugliness that lies right beneath our own polished surface? Well, then, there's a humbling lesson too. It's those moments when I realize I have to extend grace to Caroline as she figures these things out by trial and error in the same way God lavishes me with mercy, even as I make the same mistakes over and over again.

Not one thing we've done changes that we are his. That he created us and loves us with a love more fierce and loyal than any we will ever know. He isn't looking for perfection. He's looking for humble hearts that know we are nothing without his lavish grace.

Which is why we have now added a vow to our friendship that we will never ever "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" each other. That at we will always talk things out and never allow miscommunication to derail our relationship. But the whole conversation made me think about times in my life when I've felt that way, like I've been dropped with no sign that it was about to happen. And I think Gulley is right- it's the worst feeling in the world because it leaves you feeling completely helpless.

I believe that is what happened during this time in my life. God had other things for me, and he knew me so much better than I knew myself, so he moved me along to a new place. It certainly didn't lessen the pain at the time, but if I've learned anything along the way, it's that sometimes the best lessons are the ones that hurt the most.

Sometimes you can look back on times in your life and know that God was guiding you even when you didn't know you were supposed to be listening.

You hear so many people talk about finding their soul mates only in relation to who they marry, but I think that, as women, our real soul mates are often found when we recognize some version of ourselves in someone else.

Of course there was no way my mind could have comprehended all that this friendship would become. There are probably only a handful of times in our lives when someone who will change us forever walks in-- when we find someone we can love with our whole hearts, who will challenge us and shape us and make us feel like the world is safer and brighter just because they are in it. A person who loves us for exactly who we are, yet teaches us to be better because of who they are and how they live their life.

When Perry and I walked into the hospital waiting room and I saw her sitting there, I began to cry, because that's what friendship looks like: knowing your friend better than she knows herself and being there to hold her hand while her heart breaks.

But there are a few people in your life who become so much a part of you that it feels like you're missing a limb when they're gone.

It was the beginning of learning that I can't look to any one person to be my security blanket, and that my value goes deeper than one person's opinion of me. I learned that friendships are fragile and we need to handle them with respect and reverence.

Some roads we travel in life can feel like the ones that might break us, but that's why God surrounds us with people who will cheer us on and wipe our tears and listen as we pour out our hearts. Because often, it's not what you say but what you do that really matters.

Because that's what friends do. They speak the truth when you've lost your way, pick you up and brush you off , tell you that you're going to make it to the other side, and cheer you on until you get there.

We both learned how to be a friend by watching the women who came before us. Women who taught us that it's okay to show someone who you really are-that when you stop hiding behind a mask of perfection and protection, you unlock something beautiful.... Our girlfriends weave a luminous thread from the women we are to the women we hope to become, We may never find perfection, but we'll never be alone.

And you know what I realize now? That we're all waiting on something, no matter where we are in life. It's the human condition.

...motherhood is the thing in a woman's life that catches her by total and complete surprise.

Real motherhood is different. It's better and it's messier and it's more complicated. It will break your heart and make you laugh harder than you ever imagined. You find yourself alternating between feeling like your friends talked you into some sort of pyramid scheme so you could share in their misery and thinking this is the most fulfilling thing you've ever done in your life.

I watched her with the crab as she ignored all my admonitions that the poor crab just needed to be set free if he was to have any chance of surviving. And God showed up there on that beach to teach me a lesson. Nothing survives when it's being smothered. Life, real life, requires being free to move about in the great big ocean, not being cradled in little hot hands that will stifle independence and creativity. We can't keep our crabs (or our kids) in a bucket and expect them to go far in life.

But my personal favorite words of wisdom came from Gulley during the last thirty minutes of the trip, when she broke up a backseat scuffle by declaring, 'When you lick the person sitting next to you, there's a good chance you're going to get punched.'I believe the only reason that gem is missing from the book of Proverbs is because Solomon must never have traveled with three kids in the back of his chariot.