There’s this thing about women.
They may be wearing purple boots or skinny jeans or sweat pants. But when they do that thing – that thing where they look right into your eyes, where they just reach over and hug you, where they whisper secret truths in tears that trail slowly down their cheeks, where they surprise you with a packet of Twizzlers, where they smile into the scrunched up face of your daughter, where they save you a spot at dinner, where they lend you their lipstick, where they aren’t afraid to babysit your screaming baby, where they hold your hand tight, tight while you try to exhale, where they compliment your hair.
Yea, that thing they do?
It’s magical.
It’s the kind of super power that can turn a day inside out.
What women can do for one another.
How they can heal each other with the power of laughter.
And hospitality that’s contagious.
Sometimes we’re so busy wondering if we’re getting it right, so busy worrying we’re not measuring up, so caught up in thinking we need to be just like her that we forget she loves us just the way we are.
She loves the joy and Jesus and friendship and tired-up-all-night-with-the-baby eyes that make you, you. Forget awkward, forget feeling small or insecure or worried about what she’s thinking.
Jump.
Women have the power to catch you in their I-know-just-what-you’re-talking-about smiles, their encouragement that it gets easier or better or that God-will-hold-you-when-it-doesn’t empathy.
Let them.
Open your heart, your hand, your home. Forget making them look perfect.
Just invite a friend in.
Take a risk.
It might be the best kind of worth it.
The very best kind.
::
{Post and photos from last year’s Relevant Conference. A gathering place of friends and women and laughter.}
I just love seeing all those happy faces having so much fun!!
You captured friendship at it’s core, at it’s best, and yes, it is the best kind of worth it! Love the pictures~they make my heart smile!
Ahhhhh…one of my favorite things…sisterhood! I love it when women come together being free; but most of all, being free to be themselves…now that’s living!;-))
Love this! Thanks for the reminder of how awesome girlfriends are, and how important it is to open your heart to them.
Just, so, so good. Thank you for all these smiles, Lisa-Jo.
This brings me so much joy to see real women just coming together as they are! Its a reminder how precious sisterhood is.
What a super fabulous post!!! Friends, where would we be without them. Loved this!
what an amazing and empowering post. I am so better barbecue of my friends.
Wow Lisa-Jo! I came to your site today to go back to the 5 Minute Friday link-up from last week so that I could read some more posts there. But what came up in front of me was this post…THIS post…AGAIN!!! I read it last year…just “happened” to see someone post a link for it on Twitter. I clicked in and read. I was swept away with a lump in my throat and a pain in my heart. And a deep deep longing. Last year, it inspired me to write my own blog post on friendships and I linked to this post in it. {http://www.onwingsandwaves.com/2011/11/girlfriends.html} Anyway, still reading it again, I have the same feelings. This is something so deep, powerful, and profound. This year’s theme for MOPS is about relationships/friendships – just taking the plunge. I’m seeking & praying that I’ll find that friendship. I *so* wish I was going to Allume. But alas, I am not. :( I pray next year. Thank you for this beautiful, heart of girl friendship post…again! :)
Oh, I forgot to ask…would it be okay for me to publish this post (without pictures) in our MOPS monthly newsletter? I will credit you and put a link to your blog. Thanks!
This is the most beautiful, beautiful post. And so, so true. There is nothing that picks me up more than seeing my friends, when I see them looking past all my fronts and my loud-ness and my outside, right through into my inner depths. There are some people who can just see through it all and they see who I am beneath, and still they love me. STILL they love me. It truly astounds me, where do they find this love from? And I do get defensive, I do try and hide all the mess and the yuck, but it is from experience that I have learnt that when I do open up my messy, yuck-filled heart to others, sometimes I do absolutely get it broken, but much more often someone comes along and they start to brush off the dust, they polish up my insides, they take care of me and they love me. They love me for who I am, and they see what I am not really and they help me to chip it off, and they say, ‘Look! Look at the masterplan, THIS was not how you were meant to be, this is not what you were created for.’ And so they help to restore me.
These people, these God-given people, have transformed me. No, I’m not perfect, I am not even close, but I am more me than I was.
People who see past all my yuck to the beauty that lies beneath, the beauty I haven’t, and can’t discover myself, the beauty they want to reveal to the world, they want to help me let it shine through, because they want to join me in God’s song, in His kingdom work. These are the people that without, I am not.
Thanks for this post. I needed it.
Bless *big heart*
I came across this today, purely by chance.
Lucky me. : )
Very nice. What a happy, happy post.