My sophomore year of high school was one of my great challenges and times of loneliness. God had given me some awesome friends and I thought my life was on track. Then one day at lunch my friends and I started discussing sex before marriage. A lot of people our age had already lost their virginity. A couple of my friends said they figured it was okay if you really liked the person. Others thought it was just something you did in high school. I remember being half shocked and half angry at this conversation. We had all gone to church together over the years and I just assumed we all mostly had the same viewpoint. Me being who I am, I had to say something about it.

I remember saying the Bible says that it is wrong and that sex was for marriage. It was not right, we should be waiting for our spouses.

Unfortunately, this made a few of them upset. They disagreed and became angry with me. Literally did not talk to me for weeks. It hurt really bad. I was so confused because I thought these people had the same beliefs as me. I thought I knew them better than I actually did. After that day I started asking God for a group of friends who loved Him and His Word.

Not that I didn't like my current friends but I was realizing that I did not need to be around the things they were doing. I needed someone to build me up and encourage me in God's word. So I prayed. Many times I considered giving up. How could I find someone that would encourage me this way? I was very blind at the time. Luckily, a few months later, God opened my eyes.

While God had been working on my heart during this time, I discovered I was not the only one He was working on around me. God brought three great guys who loved Him to be my best friends and sources of encouragement. Turns out we were all lonely and broken in some way. Our youth pastor at the time set up a day of the week for all of us to meet at his house and have a Bible study. God used that time to encourage us all and gave us a vision and dreams for the future.

God broke our hearts for the hurting and lost around us. We tried to make plans to help and encourage others. Some worked out while others did not. People needed to hear the good news about Jesus. When people were down in any way we would point them to the counselor and healer. We would tell our personal stories of how God had loved and provided for each of us in our own ways.

The four of us faced high school graduations, relationships, breakups, heartbreak, family issues, sickness, and loneliness together. We saw God move in people and change hearts and lives. We wanted a great revival. We wanted God's love in everything. But we still live in a corrupt world and we knew it. We were not and are not perfect. I know there was more we could have done and we did make mistakes. But God is perfect, and we know He loves the people around us more than we ever could.

I hope I get to spend the rest of my life calling these guys some of my best friends. And even if that is not what God has planned, I love them and am beyond thankful that God brought the four musketeers together. God has great plans and I am excited to live His plans for me out and watch them be lived out by others.

"As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend." Proverbs 27:17