FRIENDSHIP ISSUES? PRAYER WORKS...

BY LAUREN HADEN

LAST YEAR AT MIDDLE SCHOOL, it felt as if I didn't have a good group of friends I fit in with. The friends I'd known since kindergarten were growing apart. Some of them were only focused on school-work, some were ignoring me, and some were making new friends.

At lunchtime, I would check out each table to try to find someone to sit with. Sometimes I would look at certain classmates and automatically decide I couldn't be their friend because they were so different from me—they just weren't the kind of person I would usually hang around with. This outlook caused me to focus on my classmates' flaws, rather than their good qualities. Feeling frustrated, I resigned myself to a lonely school year.

After our eighth-grade class came back from a big overnight trip to the Santa Cruz Mountains in California, I was on the verge of tears. During the trip, I'd felt isolated and lonely, since the group I was assigned to was very cliquish.