Surprises

I just returned from taking a friend to the airport. My very close friend, Nicole, is flying to France to study fashion design. I’m very excited for her and proud of the many steps she has taken to follow her dreams. But it was very hard to see her go. This weekend was one of many joyous surprises and revelations into the changes that has taken place in both of our lives over the past month.

On Saturday, a group of women friends came over for breakfast. A few months back we started a morning prayer and reflection group together. We’ve come to a place where we can not meet on a regular basis, but with Nicole in town we wanted to send her off with our blessings. During the time while we were apart for a month we recognized some areas where we had been let down, disappointed and discouraged in the group. And as we shared our deepest sorrows, together we found healing and the opportunity to face the trials with joy.

In my reflections of this weekend, I am reminded of God’s encompassing goodness. I think through the trials and challenges of life we tend to reside to certain beliefs. Beliefs like: we can’t trust… we can’t be open… we can’t share our burdens… people can’t understand… relationships are too hard to pursue and so on. I had come to this place in my life. After having recently lost a dear friend and confidant I began to lose hope that such a friendship could exist in my life again. In fact, out of my fear of the possibility of creating the kind of dependency in new relationships I ran from the opportunity to engage these friendships. My dreams to know and be known slowly began to dwindle out of fear of the pain it could bring. Although these fears irrational and certainly not fair to God and to others, they did come from a deep feeling of pain and loss. When I reflect on this previous relationship I realize how embedded we were in our brokenness, our shame, our sin and our fears. Thus, producing selfish desires and motivations.

In this day and age, it is hard for women to connect. It is hard for women to reveal their brokenness to each other out of fear that it may be used as a weapon in future conflicts and tension. In the world of female relationships we have underlying motivations, unspoken expectations and unfair competitive strategies. We communicate in code and are manipulative in nature. We have a hard time rejoicing and celebrating the blessings in other women’s lives. And sometimes we establish female friendships to fill a cavern of emptiness, brokenness and ineptness. Rarely, are we fighting for the ‘other’. In fact, we are frequently finding ways to undermine the goodness in other women’s lives. This seems like a harsh depiction of the female psyche. And we may think that it certainly doesn’t happen in Christian relationships. The truth: is that it does. Our inability to talk about our insecurities, our failures and our fears perpetuates the idea that we can stand alone and be strong. The fact is: women need women. Women need women to advocate for them. Women need women to encourage them. Women need women to hold them accountable. Women need women to speak into their lives. No one can show a clearer image of a woman’s depravity and beauty than the reflection of another woman. The celebration of birthing life, nurturing souls and mending brokenness should be shared among the hands of women. We can be each other’s worst enemy or greatest advocate because we know the insides of our weaknesses, our strengths and our humanity.

And so after great loss, I gave up on a dream: the dream to find community with other women. The surprise is that these women in my prayer group have redeemed a place in me that I thought had been buried. Watching each of us share our sin and move to celebrate in God’s constant presence, His faithfulness and His care in painful times inspired great joy and an aliveness I resigned to death. Together we reflected the truth that God redeems us with the hope that we might birth, mend, nurture, care, fight and love together.

Amen.