The Sisterhood

When is the last time that you went shopping for a pair of pants?  Does anyone else get discouraged like I do that after fifty trips to the dressing room you are still left empty handed?  It isn't that I can't find anything to fit my "mom" hips, a pair long enough for my tall frame, or even that I can't find a few pairs to fit my chicken legs.  But there are few jeans that can do all three.  And even fewer that can attractively do all three.  I was reminded of this fact when I recently perused the racks after receiving a few gift cards for Christmas.  I am sure it was confusing for the other women in the dressing room to hear laughter coming from one of the stalls, but when I try on a pair of jeans "my size" and it looks like I am getting ready for the great flood- it is hard not to laugh.  And for those who know me, you know that my laugh can be heard from miles away so there is no keeping it to myself.  Thanks Mom for that!

 

All of this got me thinking of a movie that came out quite a few years back.  One I admittedly have never seen but it's storyline was interesting none-the-less.  It was called "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants".  I am sure that you have heard of it.  In this movie there are these magical pair of jeans.  How do I know that they are magical?  Because they fit four friends who are different shapes and sizes, perfectly.  My sister and I don't even fit each other's pants perfectly!  Magic I tell you.  And by magic I mean that the movie crew bought a few pairs of the same jeans in different sizes so that it would appear that they were all passing around one pair of pants.  Myth busted! 

 

Anywho, it got me thinking about friendship and girls in general.  Too often it isn't a pair of pants I see being passed around, if we were to make a movie based on real life we could more accurately call it "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Past".  Why is it that girls are so hard on eachother?  A school campus is like a war-zone with every girl for herself.  We judge a girl by what we've heard about her before even getting to know her.  And, even worse, we are at competition with one another- waiting for someone else to fail so that way we look better.  I wish that I could say that it gets better after high school but the truth is that I see it among women everyday.  Something happens over the weekend and by the time Monday rolls around everyone knows about it.  Oh-em-gossip ladies!  Let's make a choice to keep other people's business out of our conversations!

 

This type of behavior is not what God intended when he created women.  We were not meant to be competition with one another, but to be friends and comrades.  A sisterhood.  We are all facing the same image-is-everything, self-centered, media driven world and it is time we linked arms, putting aside our pasts, and stood up for eachother.  It's all about love, girls, LOVE.  It is the only commandment we were given in the New Testament.  To love God and to love people.  The kind of love found in 1 Corinthians 13 that "keeps no record of wrong" and "believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things."  Although we may only apply this type of thinking to a dating or marriage relationship, the truth is that these words were written to instruct us how to treat everyone.  The girl who has given herself away too many times to count needs your love, the girl who bullies others to feel superior needs your love, the girl who shares gossip like she gets paid to needs your love, the girl who is mysteriously quiet and reserved needs your love and the girl who pretends to have it all together needs your love.  They need the love that believes in them, hopes for them, and endures with them.  They need the kind of love that doesn't hold their past over their heads or join in when others turn their backs on them.  They need a sisterhood.  We all do.

 

This love should be the thing that we all pass around.  And believe me, it looks good on everybody!  So with the best of my ability, you can trust that I will have your back.  I will speak well of you, believe the best for you, and encourage or challenge you to become the women that God made you to be.  I will not allow myself to feel let down or offended by your choices, hurt or rejected by your words.  I will forgive you no matter the circumstance, knowing that I daily am in need of forgiveness.  I will believe in you.  I will pray for you.  And even (or in some cases- especially) if the feeling is not mutual, I will love you.

 

 

Luke 6:35

I tell you, love your enemies. Help and give without expecting a return.

You’ll never—I promise—regret it. Live out this God-created

identity the way our Father lives toward us, generously and graciously,

 even when we’re at our worst. Our Father is kind; you be kind.

(The MESSAGE)

 

     

Story of my life...

Sitting in a car drinking coffee before the start of school with a fellow classmate my senior year, I burst into laughter after hearing the phrase “You are nothing like they said you were.  I thought you were a witch”.  We had been working on poetry in our English class (which is a secret love of mine) and I had written a figurative poem about the irony of freedom using a man in prison and a bird outside of his window to illustrate my point.  I was surprisingly proud of what I had written considering my over-the-top obsession with perfection and decided to share it with the class when the teacher had asked for volunteers.  The poem ended with the prisoner eating the bird, symbolizing his eliminating the reminder of his captivity and giving up on the hope of his freedom.  From that one line alone a few students came to the conclusion that I must be a witch, of course- why wouldn’t they come to that conclusion?  It couldn’t be that the poem was just that, a poem.  I must be a witch.  Of course.

 

This girl whom I had invited to go have coffee with that morning was new to the school and had terrible anxiety about a debate that we had to have that morning in class.  I offered to share all of the points I would be making that way she would feel better prepared with her answers and less caught off guard.  I never thought that this one simple act of kindness would turn out this way.  With me explaining how I had been misunderstood by a group of boys whose idea of poetry was stringing nonsensical words together and having the end of each line rhyme.  I mean really.  “Cat dog liver mouse, fire hydrant baby house” is not a poem.  But nonetheless my reputation, true or not, had preceded me and shaped her view of who I was.  

 

I have been talking with a few ladies about a very exciting event coming up in March for Head Over Heels- a Girls Conference!  I have been dreaming of doing one for over 6 years now and we are finally doing it- and it will be the first of many!  This conference is so exciting for me and I am even more excited about the possibility of what God will do through it.  The theme, “Story of my life”: a storybook look into every girl’s life was taken from an amazing passage of scripture found in Galatians.  In chapter 1 Paul, formerly known as Saul who had once persecuted and murdered Christians, was writing and said “I am sure you have heard the story of my earlier life…” (Galatians 1:13 MSG).  This phrase jumped out at me.  I don’t know if you have ever been the victim of your own reputation (even if it was a false assumption like mine had been) but it is hard to convince someone otherwise from what they believe to know.  I mean really, Paul is now trying to persuade people into becoming a Christian.  I can’t imagine the confusion that would send someone he was speaking to when it wasn’t that long before that the same way of life would have gotten you beheaded at his very hand.  

Can this man really be trusted?  Has he really changed?  Can I trust a one-time decision to override years of a certain way of thinking and acting?  While this thought may be troublesome for many, it brings me great hope!  As we start a new year it leads me to believe that we are only one decision away from changing the direction of our entire lives.  We can wake up and forget the former way of living.  We can choose to be different and stop acting the way we know is destructive and displeasing to God no matter how long we have acted that way.  We can accept the forgiveness that was so lovingly given to us through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross two thousand years ago.  Even if the world doesn’t understand and mistakes us for the old self time and time again, we can start a new year as the person we want to be.  No matter what reputation may be lingering over our heads, it is in the past if we choose for it to be.  So let’s choose to lay down that old self and write a new story for our lives! 

Philippians 3:12-13

^"I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things

or that I have already reached perfection...

No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it,

but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past

and looking forward to what lies ahead."