At this point your experiences with friendship are still precious, innocent and unspoiled. You play with anyone on the playground. You don't yet have a group or a best friend. You haven't shared secrets or been betrayed. You feel deeply, you speak honestly and you play with everything you've got. You are you all the time. The world hasn't yet tried to teach you that you should pretend to be anyone else.
I am watching you with such joy--and simultaneous fear. Because I have walked this road, I know what is likely coming. I am praying about how I can help you make your way through the whole girl relationship thing. To be honest, it terrifies me.
While I have been remarkably blessed by amazing relationships, I confess I have fallen in a few potholes on the road to figuring the whole friendship thing out. There have been seasons of my life marked by unexpected betrayals, loss, distrust, insecurity, competitiveness, judgment without love, loneliness and doubt.
God has blessed my life with women who have molded and modeled my definition of true friendship. Every now and then I get a chance to escape for a bit and reconnect with some of them. This weekend I had an overnight with two precious friends who live in Alabama & North Carolina.
The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart. ~Elisabeth FoleyI left reminded of what Godly relationships were meant to be about. Unselfish love. Cheering for one another without competitiveness. Encouragement to find our place in the body and BE it. Absolute trust. Honesty without judgment. Biblical advice. Comfort in my own skin with no need to impress. History.
These are the types of friendships I pray for you, sweet girl...but I know they take decades. So, in the meantime, I will pray for you. I will do my best to model them for you. I want to spare you the pain, but know you must walk your own road. It is the journey God has marked out for you. There are lessons you can only learn from the first hand experience. I promise to help you dust yourself off when you find yourself in potholes of your own.
I will walk beside you and hold your hand when appropriate, but I can't always be there. Only God can. The best thing I can do is lead you to Him and place your hand in His. I love you and I am praying for your friendships already.
5 comments:
this is beautiful and how i feel about my daughter as well. the thing that strikes me the most is how profound your own role as her mother will be in her life. i'm realizing that while my mother was so loving and supportive, she didn't often share the wisdom and protection you mention. i'm excited and scared to try to model that for my own.
thanks for sharing your heart.
Friendships are so important. It can be hard to find the time as a mom to nurture our own friendships but it sure is important to show our daughters. Evie was just telling me tonight that she can only have one friend. I kept it light since she's only 3 but we named all of my friends to give her an idea that it's okay (and important) to have more than one friend. Being a mom is serious business, so much to teach these litle people in so little time.
Love the idea of praying for your daughter's friendships. Adding that to my list of "things to do when I mother."
ah I love love love this...I think about this all the time and am actually dealing with things right now with my 4th grade son. I worried so much about my daughters, always thinking my son would just brush things off. Not the case...I too have friendships like yours. 11 girlfriends that have known each other since elementary school...we lost one to breast cancer and have helped each other through so much. I pray so much for my children that they will have these types of relationships with their friends...but right now I have that pit in my stomach knowing my sons heart has a little ding in it.
Absolutely LOVE this! Now that I have a daughter, I often think about all the difficult friendships she will have to wade through before she finds those few special ones, just as I had to do. But, I had not thought about praying for them. Now I will. Thank you for this.
Post a Comment