My Automatic Best Friend

All my life I have been given a best friend. Almost as if I was handed my friend on a silver platter. Up until this year, it was my twin brother, and then it was my 6 teammates. I have always had that security of having that best friend by my side and at home for me when I needed him most. It will be a strange experience next year.  I am planning to go to Purdue University next year and live in the dorms with a random roommate. I won’t have that automatic built-in best friend. I can’t help thinking of my brother. He has been there for me and I have been there for him. We did nearly everything together including the drive to and from school, eat, study, and most extracurriculars. We were together so much and then, all at once, I was gone, and he had to find his place in the world. It must be hard for him to adjust to college without his best friend there beside him every step of the way. In these hard times, he has relied on God for guidance and God gave him great friends that can be there for him when I cannot. God has blessed me with 6 people that are there for me when I need them, and I am there for when they need someone too. I am blessed in a different way. Sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we cannot be there for our best friends when they need us. We cannot be everywhere at once. I couldn’t be there for my brother on his first day of college and he couldn’t be at all my conference banquets. I can build new friendships and he can build new friendships too. He can find someone that will help him learn more about himself, I can too, and you can too. Life tends to shuffle things up and we must make the best of it. One of our team’s favorite phrases is “bloom where you are planted.” At Ball State Tanner found Awaken and he is blooming. As life changes around you, how will you bloom where you are planted?