In last month's blog, I challenged "Real Sisters" to show love, patience, and forbearance with those often touchy, and difficult women in our lives. The recent Pandemic tested our sisterhood relationships in incredible ways, leaving some of the most cherished ones, lying in the dust! The purpose of this series is to recapture the essence of what true sisterhood is really like!
I asked you to finish a list already started and here are a few of your comments in "blue":
"ONLY A REAL SISTAH ....."
1. Will tell you about a good store sale even though you've just had a big argument!
2. Listens quietly to your drama but won't let you hang up until she's prayed for you!
3. Gives you space to develop a relationship with others without getting offended!
4. Loves you enough to tell you when you're wrong and tries to get you back on track!
5. Will complement you when you look good in something you're wearing but tell you the truth if it doesn't look right on you.
6. A real sister doesn't have to call you every day but has your back when you need her.
7. Will listen patiently when you "vent" and show the ugly "you" but never reveal a word you have said.
In Other Words
Is a friend truly a friend if she won't be honest with you? The politically correct answer is, of course not! You want a true sister friend to be comfortable and trust worthy enough to tell you the truth about yourself when it is needed. But what happens when that's put to the test? When she tells you something you don't want to hear and can't even believe!I'm not talking about making judgment calls, character assassinations, or otherwise petty comments we women indulge in. Just being brutally honest in order to protect you from harming yourself or another and desiring to see God's best for your life.
The truth is that we all have blind spots when it comes to admitting to things that put us in a bad light! It might be our behavior, our attitude, sometimes even our loved ones. All these are deeply personal and can trigger emotions in us so ferocious that it would make a football defensive linebacker cower down!
Very much like when driving, a blind spot is something very close and so obvious that it should be readily seen, but isn't. In this case it is something we ignore because it is unpleasant or too difficult to deal with. Now who can't relate to that? But this is where a true friend is needed to help us out! To give us perspective. Take a look at Proverbs 27:6.
There is a two-fold interpretation of this saying from the Bible's Book of Wisdom, Proverbs. First, it tells us that we can depend on a friend telling us the truth about ourselves in a trustworthy and reliable way. She's not going to go behind our back and bad mouth us to someone else. She's coming straight to the source! That's actually the meaning of the Hebrew word emunah in this scripture. It's literal meaning is "faithful".
But it also means that she does so with great risk! She may wound you temporarily to bring out the good in a situation but takes the chance of losing your friendship and suffer the consequences of years of anger and bitterness if it is not received well!
Still, isn't it better to hear it from someone you love than in the streets? That's where those phony friends (the kiss butt enemies in the the verse) will take it. They have no qualms about allowing you to live in the devastation of your blind spots then blind side you with insults and abandon you when you hit the wall!
On our journey to learning what real sisterhood is all about. Let's think about what matters most! Instead of gathering to ourselves silly sisters willing to tell us what we want to hear; let's find some mature women with enough love to tell us what we need to know, and back bone and patience enough to take it, when we go foul on them and lash out because we don't want to hear it!
UNTIL NEXT TIME...
