Cancer, pregnancy, addiction, and infertility.

Photo Courtesy: Chanelle Young Photography

Most women go through it. You graduate from high school, go to college, and your circle of high school friends fizzles, and everyone goes their separate way.

This happened to my group of high school girlfriends, but a few years ago (about 3 years after college), my group of girlfriends were brought back together by a marriage. One of my best high school guy-friends married a girl I knew through the pageant circuit. And that was the rebirth of my friendship with my high school girls.

Today, the girls that I was friends with in high school (+1) are still some of my best friends. And in the last couple years, we've experienced (and are still experiencing) struggles with cancer, pregnancy combined with cancer treatments, infertility, and addiction recovery. All I can say is that I have the most amazing group of girlfriends, and they are some of the strongest women I have ever known.

To give you some background: One of these ladies is battling ovarian cancer and going through chemotherapy while pregnant. One friend is in recovery from alcohol and drug use (she is 2 years sober!). One friend who is starting in vitro fertilization (IVF) due to fertility struggles. And one friend has a father battling the very late stages of brain cancer.

This past Sunday, all of us got together to bake cookies, and the day ended with some much-needed emotional release. The six of us just sat around and opened up about what is "really" going on in our lives. Although we get together often, it's difficult to find out what's really going on in each of our personal lives, in a big group-setting. But this Sunday, we all opened up and shared our stories.

Stories were shared about anger with God, fears, anger at the way things so unfairly happen, and I really got to feel and know what my close girlfriends are going through on a daily basis. However, I know I will never REALLY know what they are each having to deal with.

I drove home thinking how unfair life is. Why is one of my YOUNG friends having to deal with the possibility of never being able to have a baby? Why is such a good person having to go through chemotherapy, while she's trying to grow a healthy baby in her belly? Why does a beautiful, successful and loving young woman have to live with the disease of addiction every day? And why is such a beautiful and loving young mother having to face the reality of possibly losing her father to brain cancer?

Life is incredibly unfair.

While I don't have the answers to these questions, I do feel incredibly blessed. However, I also wonder why my family isn't dealing with the pain that my girlfriends are dealing with.

Why them, and not me?

Part of me questions my relationship (or lack thereof) with God. Does being closer to God keep these circumstances away? This is an internal struggle I don't think I will ever understand.

What I do know is that there is a reason my group of girlfriends were brought back together after our years apart during college. We all need each other. I need them as much as they need me. I am so incredibly blessed to have each of these girls in my life, and one day the world will be touched by each of their amazing stories of courage and strength.

I love you ladies!