Girlfriend!

I was spending time with my mom, big sister, and our baby girls yesterday.  We were talking about how challenging it has been to have sustained friendships with other women.  I marvel at girls who have lifelong best friends.  What must that be like? 

Big sis & me

 I had two very dear friends when I was a child; in many ways they were practically sisters to me.  Our closeness deteriorated, I believe, because I went through a very dark internal season of the spirit when my parents got divorced.  I was already predisposed to being moody and selfish anyhow, but I must have been insufferable at that point in life.  That season was too quickly followed by an insanity that often claims pre-teen girls: boy-mania.  I had crushes upon crushes.  My closet was literally a shrine to Hanson, Green Day, Silverchair, and Bush.  I may have liked their music, but I likely never would have discovered that if the singers weren't cute.  I was much more driven to have a boyfriend than to nurture my friendships with girls.

It wasn't until I came to know Jesus that all the sudden I saw how deep my desire to have girlfriends was.  One of my very first sincere prayers was that God would put me in a place where I wouldn't be distracted by boys and would have an opportunity to get to know girls.  You may giggle when you find that I prayed this after completing my first year at Georgia Tech where the ratio of guys to girls at the time was 7 to 3.  I did, however, secure a job at a Victoria Secret.  Initially I believed it was an answer to my prayer.  Too soon, though, I learned that girls that work at VS are not too different from boys.  As a new follower of Jesus, for me it was an unsavory and less than ideal environment in which to be. 

My big sister remarked on the nature of closeness.  Among her good friends, the degree of intimacy was too often characterized with "cattiness".  You weren't really that tight if you didn't call each other b----.  Rudeness substituted kindness as terms of endearment.  I know exactly what she was talking about.  Regardless of whether my friends were non-Christians or Christians, in some cases it was as if the relationship wasn't authentic until you breached the barrier of acquaintance with crassness.  When did demeaning candor replace the gentleness that is intrinsic to being a female?

I admit I have been bawdy with friends.  But God teaches that, "love does not delight in wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth" {1 Corinthians 13:6}.  What a challenge to the notion of what is so common to our thinking~ to my thinking.  The wisdom of the world promotes callous affection, "but the wisdom that comes from heaven is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere" {James 3:17}.  

My problem with not having long lasting close friendships with girls hasn't been for lack of desire.  It is more likely that I haven't been 
"pure" in my motives (thinking the friendship is about meeting my needs), 
"peaceable" in how I speak (I have said and continue to say provocative and destructive things much to my chagrin), 
"gentle" in the content of my speech (this lady doth share too much), 
"open to reason" (which would require me to be a better listener than I am), 
"full of mercy" (too busy occupied with myself to consider my friend's thoughts, needs, or feelings),
"full of good fruits" in giving to and serving others,
"impartial" to who the Lord has purposefully put in my life,
and "sincere" (often behaving the way I think I ought to in order to fit in).

If I am honest with myself, what I have deemed closeness to other ladies as an adult has too often resembled the culture and not enough of what I knew to be true as a kid.  To have a friend, you must first be a friend.  And who better to learn that from than the truest Friend we could ever ask for.  God shows his desire to befriend us in that while we were still his enemies, he sent Christ to die for us and save us. {adapted from Romans 5:8}

Our sweet baby girls