On Girlfriends

~For Alana, Jody, Jackie, Nina, Amy, Isabelle, Nicole, Anesa, Jenifer, Kelly, Melanie, Catherine, Liz and all of the beautiful women in my life.

I lived on the second story of a three story home on a well treed street in a trendy district of town.  I was twenty three, newly graduated from college, and well into my second year of working. Winter nights were long.  Balcony visits and star gazing, lonely.  Boxes were ticked on my game of life list.  I was emptier than I had ever been.

I held God at a distance.  More than an arms length, less than an ocean’s depth.  I called on him that night alone in my rental abode.  Knees on hardwood floor, lost in my miserable existence.  Pleading for more life to come into mine. Needing to be awakened again.  Self laying dormant.  Praying for friendships.

Somewhere in my early to mid twenties between moves, graduations, boyfriends, old schools and new jobs, I found myself and friendships in a desert place.  Tumbleweeds rolling.  Crickets chirping.  Life transitions and goal achieving became more important than relationship.  I needed them but didn’t know where to begin.

The phone rang.  “Do you want to go play pool?” I put the receiver down in excitement.  Crying tears of relief and anticipation as I showered and changed to enter the world again I had craved and missed: A world colored with Girlfriends.  I needed them.

From that day forward, God poured girlfriends into my life.  Not in numbers, but in a perfect timing, perfect matching, mind blowing, joy filled kind of way.  One who I can turn to for wisdom and guidance. One who has known me since my first car and first love. One who can make me laugh and let me be crazy. One who understands my spiritual walk and speaks into it. One who I can play with, who can box with me and sweat. One who understands my heart as a mother and how raising my daughter is as important as breath.   One who is steps down the street, in my neighborhood and heart.  Two who are across the ocean, but in my footsteps everyday.

All who have become sisters, whom I love dearly, and who were seemingly hand picked for me to walk on this planet of ours.  Women who make me stronger.  Women who hold me up and speak into my life when I’ve fallen down. Women who appear to hold the universe together, in their grocery shop excursions, their child care coordination, their meal preparations, their counselling, their studies, their ministry, their parenting, in their marriage.  Women who walk and talk with Jesus. Who bow their heads in grace for him, and fight their own battles on behalf of him.  Beautiful, strong, courageous, tenacious women. 

God gave me the most extraordinary girls.  For that alone, I am abundantly blessed.

~Every good and perfect gift is from above.  James 1:17