Coming into college, I thought, "oh my gosh this is going to be so awesome!! I can live by myself and I'm going to make so many friends and I'm going to have an amazing time!!" Well, welcome week was pretty good. But not long after that, I started to feel lonely. Not everyone you meet on the first day of college is going to be your friend. I had been hanging out with some girls on my floor and they were nice, don't get me wrong, but girls tend to be very clique-ish, as a lot of us know. We form groups as a sense of comfort.

And guess who didn't have a group? This gal. In all honesty, I was fine with not having a group of friends, because I am the kind of person who prefers to have a few close friends. But the problem was, I didn't have anyone. Sure, I had people I knew but they had already found a group of friends. I was totally alone.

I've never considered myself good at making friends--I tend not to trust a lot of people and I'm not that outgoing. I tried my best, and I did find a group of girls I thought I would be close with, but they started making plans without me. I was so frustrated, and when I came back to school from my fall break, I couldn't help but cry as soon as my dad left my dorm. I had spent the weekend with my family and best friends and coming back to college, I didn't have friends and really was lonely. On top of that, it felt like everyone else around me had a solid group of friends at college, except for moi of course. I was able to keep myself busy, but whenever I was getting tired of feeling alone, I didn't have anyone I could text and ask to get dinner with. I wondered: why was this happening to me? Why don't people want to hang out with me? What did I deserve to be going through this?

I believe that everything happens for a reason and that God gave me that experience for a reason. As time went on, I found some really great girls who do want to get to know me and who do want to hang out with me. This didn't happen overnight, it was just a matter of getting to know them and hanging out with them consistently. But I felt a lot comfortable with these girls, I felt for the first time that they actually wanted to be around me. They invited me to hang out with them and I knew I could be myself around them.

Everyone comes into your life for a reason, some will stay and some won't, but it is all God's plan. Even though I was lonely at first, He made sure I surrounded myself with people who wanted to spend time with me and get to know me. I'm grateful for everything I've had to go through and have seen God bless me more. For anyone else who is going through something similar to what I went through: you WILL make friends, I promise! Everything good takes time, and just remember that you are never alone because God is with you: "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you." - Deuteronomy 31:6. This verse gave me a lot of strength in my times of weakness and reminded me that although I was alone, I had God with me all along. He made everything work out for my good, and will do the same for you!