The Emma

Emma is the woman who will always have your back. Once you are a part of her life, she will love you and love you hard. Emma shows you her love through listening and through inclusion. When you are in need, she is quick to include you on her plans or drop everything to make sure you feel better. She is the one you go to when you are in need of relationship. She can be friends with anyone and everyone, but she reminds me that taking that intentional time to form a deeper relationship with one another is so valuable. A quality I learn from that in my friendship with Emma to not be afraid to be vulnerable. Sharing your weaknesses allows a door to be opened to a whole new level of trust that is otherwise almost impossible to open; and boy, it is so worth it. The connections that are formed, the memories that are made, and the love that is built when it comes from a place of vulnerability and honesty is so pure and unbreakable. Emma has shown me that I would never trade my failures or my weaknesses for perfection if that meant we would not have been able to build this solid friendship that we now have.

Throughout my friendship with Emma, we truly connected once we hit a place of weakness that led to healing and growth together. Throughout Emma's selflessness, I learned that a way to show true love for Jesus to others is through vulnerability. When Christians act like we have it all together, it appears as if we're reaching some unspoken standard that is absolutely impossible to reach. Who is that fair to? Absolutely no one. I am realizing that "having it all together" hinders relationships, but Jesus makes it clear he welcomes the broken. We are not perfect, and we never will be. Jesus shows up among the weakness. Jesus shows up among the broken. Where is Jesus when I am broken? When I am weak? He is there. Where is Jesus when I am struggling, broken and weak and being supported by my friends? He is there. Jesus is present. Me, feeling like a failure for not having it all together in the beginning of my friendship with Emma showed that I thought I had the power to save. Jesus is bigger. I do not have the power to save, but His grace does. Continuously, over and over again I see Jesus working through the people he puts into my life. Emma's heart and comfort demonstrated all of that to me.

Emma is bold, outgoing, hilarious, beautiful and compassionate. When you wear the Emma, I want you to balance being selfless without giving up the love you have for yourself. I pray that you learn to love yourself so much in who He created you to be that it naturally pours out onto others and you show them that love through being intentional and vulnerable with one another.