Friends of Girls

My job gives me the beautiful privilege of being around wise, Godly, young women every day. The Lord really uses these girls to give me life and keep me thinking and growing.

Particularly, today, I was talking with my friends Casey and Bryanna after a Bible study. Bryanna and I have a lot of the same story and have dealt with many same things. Both of us went through a time in our young lives where we said things like "It's better and easier to be friends with guys," and "Girls carry too much drama." While this theory can hold ground many days, it discounts the importance of  good, old fashioned, girlfriend.

As you may have learned, we women have a little issue with, often times, not being honest with ourselves, but once you come to the point where you can be, you really learn how dumb you are, which makes you smarter.

So, let's take a minute and just be honest.

Honestly, when I was younger, I spent a lot of time around guys for many reasons: they made me feel pretty, I felt protected, I felt smart, they told me what I wanted to hear... The list could really go on and on, but we can go with these things.

What's the problem, you ask?

I didn't take the time in my life to form solid friendships with other girls. Why: they made me feel ugly, I was jealous of them, I didn't like to talk about my feelings, I felt dumb.

This may sound like a girl bashing session, but, in fact, it is just the opposite. What I'm trying to say is this: Girls, we have got to start forming Godly bonds in which we support and love one another. 

We keep allowing ourselves to turn to this pettiness out of jealousy of each other. In turn, many girls turn to only being close to guys, and when we depend on emotional support and close close friendship from guys who are not our boyfriends or husbands, we run into a lot of issues.

The older you get, the more difficult it will be to hold on to your best guy friends and maintain healthy relationships with boyfriends, fiances, husbands, and friends who are girls.

How do we avoid this?

We must avoid the sin of jealousy. I can think back over my life and just about every tiff I've ever had with another female included this little "friend." Jealousy tells us that we should be the one with laughable jokes and that we should be the one turning heads, not her.  (Idea totally credited to Bryanna)

It's time that we grasp on to the good in each other and hold fast to sharing our hearts with our female friends.

I'm not saying that we should form a she-woman, man-haters club. I'm not saying never talk to boys. I'm saying that we must maintain appropriate boundaries with the opposite sex, and draw closer to our sisters. (Those boundaries would definitely include limiting hear-to-heart with guys time when our goal is to make ourselves feel better. We've all done it.) When, we as sisters, are honest with each other, we begin to find out how similar we all are.

Nothing like having someone to share hot chocolate with! 

So, what it that you need to do to grasp onto Godly friendships with other young women?