Thursday, August 1, 2013

Be a Girlfriend...

Today is National Girlfriend Day... it is a day to let those ladies in your life that have been with you through thick & thin how much you love & appreciate them!  I have been blessed with incredible women in my life! So I wanted to share this little article about women needing women.  I pray hurts of the past from not such good friendships will not leave you scarred & unable to be loving & transparent with some great women in your life! So here we go with "Why Women Need Each Other" from Anita Carmen:

“My husband is my best friend, but he could never take the place of the women who were and are foundational in my life,” says Anita Carman, Founder of Inspire Women. “God never meant for my husband to fill every role in my life. When I try to make him what he is not, all I do is drain him!”

The Bible speaks of women encouraging each other such as Mary the mother of Jesus going to visit her cousin Elizabeth after the angelic visitation,” says Carman. “Elizabeth had the discernment and spiritual maturity to affirm Mary in her calling.

God saw it fit to team women up in pairs or in groups. He designed women to be in each other’s lives as part of a biblically supportive community. Pastors have expressed the need for women to minister to the women. This is especially true in situations where women have suffered abuse.

The Bible speaks of the older women teaching the younger women. God values the experience of a longer walk of faith with Him and validates the impact of an older woman speaking truth to another.

Some say women are more effective ministering to women because they are natural nurturers. Others say it’s because they tend to be more relational.  The Bible does not attribute the results to nurturing or to relationship skills but simply evidences the structure of a biblical community. God designed women to help each other.

So what happens when a church does not have a women’s ministry? This means there is no intentional structure to foster relationships among women. Chances are, women do not have a structure in place where they can voice their needs and have those needs answered through the guidance, love, and support of other women.

When a woman is alone, her mind can easily become the playground of the devil. There is no voice of accountability in her life. There is no one who will walk beside her and keep her from making wrong choices.

I woke up at the age of 17 to find my mother had taken her own life. Had there been a woman in her life who was observing her depressed state, I believe someone would have intervened.

Instead, I was a teen who was oblivious to the seriousness of my mother’s pain. And my father was trying to use logic to respond to my mother’s wounded heart.

One of the most important women in my life was my spiritual mother. Her prayers carried me through my hardest challenges. When I was frustrated in building a ministry with few contacts, she would say, “Your heavenly Father knows your name.” When the ministry needed resources she would remind me, “Trust your heavenly Father. He has everything under control.”

Women helping women, women teaching women, women encouraging women, women praying for women enrich our lives with relationships that will feed our souls while fulfilling God’s purpose on earth.

In establishing the ministry of Inspire Women, I penned these words to express the ministry’s meaning in a woman’s life: “Imagine a world where every woman wakes up knowing her purpose. More than that, she has a friend who believes in her and will invest in her potential to change the world.”

“When women compete with women,” says Carman, founder of Inspire Women, “they are deviating from God’s design. When women help each other, we reach more than each could accomplish alone. Today God has called home my spiritual mother but I can still remember the many hours we talked on the phone.  I still recall how excited she was to receive my call and to listen to all that God had done to part a Red Sea. And then in her usual pattern, she would put the phone down on her lap. Then I would hear her clap while shouting the words, ‘Yeah Anita!’”

Happy Girlfriend's Day, you all!

As iron sharpens iron, so one person (woman) sharpens another (woman). Proverbs 27:17
Rejoicing in Truth!

1 comment:

lynns said...

Totally agree with you.