To me, faithfulness is one of the most difficult fruits of the Holy Spirit because the virtue does not come naturally to many people. I am not going to lie faithfulness took me a little while to learn to always be trustworthy of my loved ones and of God. Having faith takes lots of trust and trust is not always easy in today’s world because people often give you reasons to not trust them or they take your trust for granted. Family and friends are something that I hold  dear to my heart. I try to make sure that I always remain faithful to them in good times and bad. Sticking by friends and family’s side is not always easy to because they often do things that upset me and I have a hard time not turning my back on them. I can apply these ideas to my faith life with God as well because losing trust in God during hard times often happens. We should make every effort to be faithful because we must remain trustworth that things will work out in the end and remember to have the courage to tackle the virtue of faithfulness.

I am always reminded of faithfulness when I think I decided to take a chance and stand up for a good friend. Sophomore year, I was sitting with a sizeable lunch group for about a year and half now, and I was enjoyed sitting with them because they were fairly entertaining and sociable. All the girl in the friend group had always been pretty kind to me, but they did not extend the same courtesy to other people. For example, a girl once came up to the table and when she was there they seem happy to talk to her. The minute she left, they immediately began to criticize her looks and the way she talked.  Honestly, I was pretty close friends to all of them, but my best friend were Kailyn and Camrin who also sat in the friend group with me. Kailyn, Camrin, and I did lots of things together and everytime we all three talked we would laugh the whole entire time. We had friday nights filled with sleepovers and real talks. We weren’t similar to the rest of the group because we immensely cared about each other. We were less invested in all of the high school drama and focused more on just enjoying our time in high school. A few of the other girls in the group were not as close to Camrin and Kailyn as I was at the time. I was immediately put in to a bad position because these two girls were my sisters. When they would leave up from the lunch table, the other girls would start talking bad about them or try to influence me to talk bad about them too. They would say things such as, “Why do they only talk to each other” or “why do they sit here we aren’t even friends with them.” A few times they commented on the my friends looks and they way that they acted towards them. The reason Camrin and Kailyn kept their distance from the rest of the girls was because the way they treated other people .I felt so bad because a few times I just went along with the gossip and let them talk bad about my best friends. I allowed them to walk all over my friends and laugh at them behind their backs. I felt helpless, and I could do nothing to defend them because the other girls were my friends too.  I felt stuck in the middle of the whole situation because I need to have loyalty to my actual, real friends. Then, over the summer I was invited to a party at my friend’s house, and she was one of the girls who did not get along with my close friends. I walked in the party assuming that Kailyn and Camrin were invited since they were in the same exact lunch group. When I walked through the large and crowded backyard, I realized that Camrin and Kailyn were not at the party, and I asked the girl who threw the party and she implied that she did not want them at the party. I was upset by the fact that people who I thought were my friends hated my closest friends. Throughout the night, the group continued to make comments about my friends. I did not speak to the group for the rest of the summer after that night because I was so furious that they decided to talk about my friends in that way and treat them with that kind of disrespect. Then, before school started they decided to send Kailyn and Camrin a text message. Both my friends called my distraught because the group had decided to kick them out. I decided the best plan was to stand up for my better, closer friends. I texted a few of my friends in the group and called them out for not handling the situation right. I wanted to stand up for my two close friends. Although I was not kicked out of the group, I decided to longer sit with those group of people because of the way that they treated my Best Friends. I learned an important lesson about being faithful that day: sometimes you most chose the people that you trust more to be faithful to. The group that I sat with was not my real friends. My real friends were Camrin and Kailyn, and I decided to remain faithful to them because those were the people who were always there for me. We must remain by our friends and family who have always been the most honest and sincere with you.

Being faithful was not easy for me to be faithful in that situation because I had to lose lots of friendships to stand up for what was right for my friends. I definitely did no start out in this story as the most faithful friend, but I learned my lesson and became a person who can truly embody the virtue of being faithful. In that time of conflict, I tried to turn to God in my time of confusion. I was  torn on what I should do about the situation, but looking back I am still glad that I made the decision that I made. I am still close friends to both my best friends, and I am glad to have those two real friendships in my life. Those two people are important to me, and I still try to remain faithful to them today. Faithfulness is a wonderful virtue to have, but surely takes hard-work and sacrifice to achieve.