I posted this the other day on Instagram and didn’t expect to see so many women resonate with what I shared. Let’s be real, friendships are hard. We walk into them with so many unmet expectations from previous relationships, baggage and trauma. But what I’m learning is that, bringing old baggage into new friendship is like trying to put new wine in old wine skins. It just doesn’t work.
So many of us crave and desire female friendships. Ones where you feel like you’re home when you get together. There’s no pretense, no masks. Just the raw and real. You can be laughing together one moment and crying the next. You can just be you.
What the Lord has been teaching me over the last 5 years is that I can’t show up and just be me if I don’t know who me is. When we lack identity, we begin looking for others to validate and tell us who we are. That’s not true freedom in friendship. We must first do the work within us so we can be a good friend to others. The kind of friend we want for ourselves.
When we do this work, we can show up in friendships our best selves. We can rejoice and call out the gold in others, even when we’re in seasons of waiting ourselves. We are able to stand firm in who we are and the calling on our lives, while still championing women around us.
Can I encourage you for a minute? You are amazing! You are gifted and talented and God has put a unique purpose on your life. Don’t let messy middles you’re walking through cause you to forget that. I’m over here in your corner cheering you on!
Love, Alissa
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