My wonderful friend, Jessica Joy

Today I want to do a post about my very good friend Jessica Joy. It’s been one year today (Oct 22) that Jessica buddyed me on NaNoWriMo, that’s kinda how we got started but not exactly. I should start from the beginning. My sister Sarah talked me into doing NaNoWriMo and I was SUPPER excited. One problem: I didn’t have any friends who were doing it since at the time I was 14 and most of my friend we’re 12, still too young to do NaNo. So I sat down at the table with my mom’s laptop (Knowing myself I was probably eating something) and went into NaNo buddy thing and searched “Christian”. About thirty profiles popped up and I scrolled through and looked at some, none really looked interesting. Just one with some crazy username like ‘dogs for JJ’ and a couple ones who we’re way older than me. The next day I did another search saying “Christian teen” guess who came up again? That crazy one with the dogs. Finally I relented and clicked on it, looked through the profile.  It looked interesting and so, feeling a nudge (Or a shove) from God I clicked the “buddy” button. And on October 22, Jessica accepted my buddy request. You would have to ask her why she did that, I don’t know. Somehow (I think there was a link on her profile or something) I managed to find Jessica’s blog that night, the very night of her very first post. If there’s love at first site for boys and girls there’s one for me and blogs because I fell in love with her blog right there. On the 23’rd she did her second post and on the 25’th I made my very first comment on her blog (Which I also believe was the first ever comment on her blog but you would have to ask her about that) and that was the start of a beautiful friendship. We commented on each other’s blogs (She was the first one ever to consistently comment on my blog) and on December 29 she replied to an email I had sent her asking her if she would like to get to know me. She said yes in some of the cutest ways and we sent tons of emails back and forth in the first month (January of this year) and boy did I love getting to know her. She’s a person you can get along with instantly because she’s so awesome.

On April 14’th of this year I did an interview with her on my blog (Here) and right before I posted it I was looking over her answers and was thrilled beyond any words (a rarity let me tell you) Because one of the questions I asked was why did you start a blog and this was her response: 

“To be honest, Mikayla, it was because of you!  I saw your (Mikayla's) account on NaNoWriMo.com and it said that she had a blog on Blogger.  I checked it out and thought that it would be fun to start blogging again!  I'm so glad the LORD lead me to her blog; both it and my own blog readers have been such an encouragement! =D  It's really as simple as that. =)” 

Isn’t she just the sweetest thing?!?! I almost cried when I read that the first time. Gosh I just love her to death. 

You know what made me love her most? She was never afraid to be herself. It was actually kinda funny because one of the first things we did when we first started emailing was to set out our biggest faults and at least I know it was very comforting to know that she accepted me for exactly who I was (and am) and never minded that I spoke my mind, rambled, told her crazy plots, asked her dozens of questions at a time or sent her completely random emails about once a week or more. 

Oh and about the whole crazy “dogs for JJ” thing I will say I don’t find it crazy anymore now that I know Jessica but um, let’s just say I wasn’t very impressed when I first saw it. Her awesome blog title (Which is like the coolest thing EVER) made up for my lack of confidence in her title picking skills.

I’ve known her for a year now and I can honestly say it’s been one of the best years of my life thanks to Jessica. Jessica has prayed with me about stupid as well as big, texted me over almost 60 times in a day (only once), laughed with me tons, given me the ability to laugh at myself, encouraged me countless times, been my most enthusiastic fan, encouraged me in writing more than anyone else and she never ceases to give me a reason to smile: that’s why she’s one of my best friends. 

I love you Jessica!!

-Mikayla-