My Soul Sister, My Friend

The capacity of a woman’s heart for meaningful relationship is vast. There is no way your husband or your children can ever provide the intimacy and relational satisfaction you need. A woman must have women friends.

It is here, in the realm of relationship, that women receive the most joy and the profoundest sorrows. The friendships of women inhabit a terrain of great mystery. Friendships endure testing and trial; they deepen and they last. The men in the lives of these women may leave, but their girlfriends do not. There is a fierce jealousy, a fiery devotion, and a great loyalty between women friends. Our friendships flow in the deep waters of the heart where God dwells and transformation takes place. It is here, in this holy place, that a woman can partner with God in impacting another and be impacted by another for lasting good. It is here that she can mother, nurture, encourage, and call forth Life.

Little girls have best friends. Grown women long for them. To have a woman friend is to relax into another soul and be welcomed in all that you are and all that you are not. To know that as a woman, you are not alone. Friendships between women provide a safe place to share in the experiences of life as a woman. Who but another woman can fully understand PAP smears and mammograms, PMS, the longing to bear a child, aging, gaining weight, and living in a world run by men? It is a great gift to know that you see as another sees, an immense pleasure to be understood, to enjoy the easy companionship of one you can let your guard down with.

Here’s my take on friendship. Friendship is a great gift. One to be prayed for and not taken for granted. If you do not have the kind of friendship you long for, ask God to bring it into your life, to give you eyes to recognize it when he does. When God gives a friend, He is entrusting us with the care of another’s heart. It is a chance to mother and to sister someone besides your family, to be a Life giver, to help someone else become the woman she was created to be, to walk alongside her and call her deep heart forth.

Friendships need to be nurtured and guarded and fought for. We need to call one another without waiting to be called first. We need to ask how our friends are doing and really listen to their answers. Listen between the lines. We love our friends by pursuing them – calls, little presents, cards, invitations to FB, to go for a walk, to go to a movie or eat out. We offer our hearts.

I guess your BFFs or girlfriends would like little presents, but what they really like best is the gift of time – the most treasured of all commodities. We need to pay attention to each other, really see one another. That truly is the greatest gift.

Hug Me!

The energies have declared today 'Hug Holiday Day,' which means it's time to wrap your head around this concept and then wrap your arms around someone else. In fact, 'Hug Holiday Day' encourages us to give hugs to anyone we think might need a few squeezes of love. It's said that on this day, volunteers freely give their hugs at senior citizen centers, hospitals and other public places where hugs would be welcome.

Research from psychiatrists and other medical professionals agrees that a close relationship exists between the health of the body and that of the mind. This research supports the speculation that your thought patterns, moods and even your behavior have a tremendous and direct result on the state of your well-being. Some of this research even cites certain things that any empowered person can do to vastly improve their health, as well as bringing a big boost of happiness into their lives.

Besides cleaning clutter, organizing the household and getting a hobby to take your mind to a different and happier place, the next advice on this happy list is to laugh often and hug freely! Laughing and hugging have been proven to exponentially improve the health of both body and mind, as well as to provide an immediate lifting of spirits! Rounding out this list are healthy eating and doing something charitable to pay it forward for all the blessings you have in your own life.

Starting today, if you do any or all of these things, then you should stand up and give yourself a big hug! I'll be sending a virtual one as well! Big squeeze to you from me!

Then and Now

In the past couple of decades, there has been a significant movement challenging men to become men of God, to love their wives and children, and to express that love through sacrifice and service. What an encouragement it has been to me to see God stirring my husband, Kenji, and turning his heart toward Him and toward his family.

Women need to be careful that we do not lose sight of the primary roles God has given us to fulfill. In today’s world, it is “politically correct” to challenge men to go home and serve their wives. However, it is not “PC” to talk to women about their responsibility to serve their husbands.

God did not make the man to be a “helper” to the woman. He made the woman to be a “helper” to the man. Of course, this does not mean that men are not to serve their wives and children. If men are to love their wives as Christ loved the church, there must be willingness to lay down their lives and become servants, even as Christ did for His bride.

If women focus on what we “deserve,” on our “rights,” or on what men “ought” to do for us, we will become vulnerable to hurt and resentment when our expectations are not fulfilled. Blessing and joy are the fruit of seeking to be a giver rather than a taker and of looking for ways to bless, serve, and minister to the needs of our families.

Simply Trust God

Don’t complicate your life by trying to understand what is wrong with your friends and family members who don’t agree with you about everything. After 5 years of marriage, I still don’t have Kenji figured out. But I found joy when I simply quit trying to understand why he likes to watch sports and be a couch potato. I have learned to be a sports fan and watch TV series on a marathon, so now I’m a couch potato myself. LOL! How’s that for a change?

In other words, you can’t really love people until you quit trying to rework them and find joy in who they are. My life got real simple when I finally realized I couldn’t change people.

God can change someone if He wants to, and if He doesn’t, it’s because He doesn’t want to. So I might as well trust God. Trust is simple. Casting your cares on Him is simple.

The Bible message is simple: Love God and love others.

The gospel is simple: Jesus loves us, this we know. Why? Because the Bible tells us so!

Even the plan of salvation is simple: Jesus died for us. He paid the price for our sin. How much simpler can it be?

It is amazing how a straightforward, uncomplicated message change your life and bring joy.

Jesus came to simplify your life. Satan wants to complicate your life, but God is not the author of confusion.

There are so many people in the church who are not really serving God with their whole hearts or their whole lives. Their lives are a big, complicated mess because they have one foot in the kingdom and one foot in the world.

The Truth Is...

God is good. Psalms 119:68 says so. When the sun is shining and you have money in the bank and you’re healthy and everyone thinks you’re wonderful, it’s not hard to believe that God is good. But when you lose your job or a loved one is diagnosed with a terminal illness or your church goes through a nasty split or your husband or wife says he/she doesn’t want to be married to you anymore, the Enemy will move in and cause you to question God’s goodness.

The Truth is, regardless of the circumstances, regardless of what we feel, regardless of what we think, God is good, and everything He does is good.

God’s grace is sufficient for me. 2Corinthians 12:9 says so. As a child of God, I will never face a circumstance that exceeds His grace. Where sin abounds, grace does much more abound. When I am weak, He is strong. When I am empty, He is full. When I have no resources of my own left, His resources have not begun to be depleted.

The Truth is, whatever you are going through right now, His grace is sufficient for you. Whatever you will go through tomorrow – or next year or fifty years from now – His grace will be sufficient for you then.

His grace is sufficient to deal with the memories, wounds, and failures of the most scarred or sordid past. His grace is sufficient for a lifetime of singleness or for a half century of marriage to an ungodly man. His grace is sufficient for the single mother trying to raise four children. His grace is sufficient for the woman caring for her elderly parents, for the empty nester, for the man or woman going through the change of life or midlife crisis, for the widow living on Social Security, and for the invalid in a nursing home.

We need to speak the Truth to ourselves; we need to speak it to each other. In every season, in every circumstance, His grace is sufficient. It is sufficient for me; it is sufficient for you!

The Truth is… I am blessed! It’s my birthday! Thank you oh God for giving me life…