Devotional Carnival - Friendship

I love my friends. I'm certain I would  grow suicidal depressed without them. I'm not the kind of gal that needs to talk for an hour on the phone with my friends every day, or meet weekly for a standing lunch appointment. But I do need to connect regularly with girls-who-get-me. Teacher types get me. Writer types get me. Perfectionistic procrastinators get me. Women with a deep love of pajamas get me. Those with a slightly quirky sense of humor usually get me. But no one gets me as much as my fellow sisters who follow Jesus.

Thank God for His Yahweh Sisterhood! And that's exactly what I was thinking we'd do for this month's devotional carnival.  Want to participate?  Great, because I want to read what you'll write about your sisters in Christ.  Here's what you do.  Write about anything at all to do with friendship/sisterhood/needing each other. Include a key verse that ties in and keep it under 700 words. Mention the carnival in your post. Then paste a link to your post in the box below.

Next, check out your fellow sisters' posts. Finally, leave a comment telling me what type of friend gets you, and what book(s) you'd like to buy during P31's big 31% off sale this week.

I'll be reading your devotions this week and picking a winner on Friday to receive this prayer journal.

Got Friends?

Just wanted to take a moment to say publicly that I have some pretty great friends! Let me show you a few examples of what I mean.

In just a few days my friend Melanie will release her new marriage book called What a Wife Needs From Her Husband. This is her second marriage book. It's really cool to have a friend you can talk to about any marriage issue.


Last fall my friend Glynnis released a book called When Your Child is Hurting. It came out about the time my son was having difficulty at school. He was hurting, which means this mama was hurting too. My ever helpful friend Glynnis sent me a copy of this book in the mail - a godsend.


And then there is my friend Luann. If I need prayer, I head for Luann faster than a formula one heads for the finish line (can you tell I live in Carolina?). I know I can count on her to pray for me and to give me the positive, encouraging faith-lift I'm needing. Hey, you can too because she takes calls on the radio every Saturday afternoon at Encouragement Cafe, and she's holding her first Encouragement Extreme conference in just a few weeks in Greensboro, NC.

At Proverbs 31 Ministries we consider you part of our family, so I can say for sure that you have some pretty cool friends too!

Thanking God for good friends and godly influences today.

Female Friends

My devotion and blog post yesterday struck a nerve. Lots of gals can relate to my struggles with women's friendships. We all crave them to varying degrees but find them not so easy to come by. Maybe because we're shy, or busy, or competitive, or career-driven, or focused on our families ... or maybe because women around us have been hurtful, ungodly, or won't make room for another gal in the tight-knit group.

The reasons we struggle in friendships are numerous, that's why so many of us can relate. Plus, we watch movies like Steel Magnolias, Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood, and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and long for friendships like those. I'm convinced that was the true draw of the oh-so popular Sex in the City series.

Even if we're abstaining from such television fare, we read novels about friendships and they stir our hearts. Like Anne of Green Gables, we want a bosom buddy. Why, oh why, is she so hard to find? An online poll asked if readers had a quality BFF like Anne did, 61% said "no."

Reminds me of Proverbs 31:10, "A good woman is hard to find, and worth far more than diamonds." (MSG)

I plan to dig through the Bible and write a post to help us find her. But right now I have to head into 5 hours straight of meetings for the She Speaks conference this weekend. Good thing that room will be filled with those sometimes hard to find "worthy women" because 5 hours in one room with 20 women could otherwise be considered cruel and unusual punishment! I'm kidding (sort of).

I don't have all the answers but there were several comments and questions I'd love for us to discuss. Like: When is it necessary to phase out a friendship? How do you do that? Or is that an unchristian thing to do? Let me hear your thoughts on this and I'll chime in with mine tonight when I'm back in my hotel room.

Woman ... Friend or Foe?

I've heard from so many women over the years who long for female friendships, but are generally mistrusting of women.

That's a rough place to be. Its like thirsting for a drink, yet fearing you'll drown if you take a sip.

Most of these women's fears are not unfounded. Maybe they had friends in the past who turned on them. Maybe they had female family members who took advantage rather than taking care of them.

Maybe they've been wronged and hurt by "the other woman." Maybe they've been the other woman themselves.

My own friendship fears were anchored in my life experiences which convinced me: women are not to be trusted, but avoided or competed with. That's why I had to learn to walk by faith with Christ, and not by my fears or cynicism.

I had to ask God for good friends, and then trust them with my heart. I had to make space in my life to care about them and what they are going through.

And when they messed up and blew it - as we all do from time to time - I had to learn to grant them grace and trust them once again.A small few I had to phase out of my life because I found them repeatedly pulling me down rather than helping me grow.

I'm not saying you can't be friends with anyone less mature in Christ than you. Besides, that's how mentoring and lifestyle evangelism work. The problem was they were stagnant, yet having more influence over me than I over them so neither one of us were growing. I enjoyed their company but it was more of a guilty pleasure and I sensed God leading me to let that go.

Today I head for Charlotte for one of my favorite times of the year: the annual She Speaks conference. I'm stoked to spend the next several days with some of the best friends a gal could have, the She Speaks team. My excitement continues because I also get to make new friends while I'm there.

This year I decided rather than rooming with a P31 teammate (Micca and I are usually roomies and I will miss that - she cracks me up y'all!) I'm rooming with a complete stranger that I hope will become a dear friend. Her name is Ariel Allison - do me a favor and pop over to her blog and tell her to be nice to me this weekend, and to grant me grace should I happen to snore!

The point is friendship takes risk, and effort, and work, and grace - just like any other worthwhile thing in life. But friendship is one of the things that make life feel more worthwhile. So don't be afraid to reach out, break the ice, make the invite, and touch someone. Forget your former foes ... new friends await. That's what my devotion today at P31 is about.

Can you think of a good friendship movie (besides, of course, Steel Magnolias)? I always return home from She Speaks too tired to do anything but sit on the sofa, drool, and watch movies for about 2 days. Maybe you and Netflicks can hook me up?