Make Girlfriends Great Again

#MakeGirlfriendsGreatAgain

I’m not sure what it is about women, millennial women especially, but many of us grew up with this stupid idea that having girl friends was bad.

I know a lot of women who, to this day, will tell me, “I don’t trust females” or “females come with too much drama” or better yet “i’M A lOneR; I don’t like being around females like that.” *insert vicious eye roll here*

FIRST OF ALL, I find the word “female” so offensive in those contexts. If you reduce another woman’s “womanhood” to her biological sex in an effort to assert that she is somehow inferior, the problem may be YOU.

Secondly, the same people who persistently utter those phrases are bitter, mean-spirited, rude, and wounded from past friendships. It’s interesting how we become the very things we despise out of our hurt and unforgiveness.

Gifs and chastisement aside, I get it! We’ve ALL had negative experiences in our friendships. Some of those experiences can be so scarring and borderline traumatic that they cause us to draw these hard lines in our hearts, so others can never have that much access to our vulnerabilities again.  However, if ALL of your relationships have this same issue, then it may be time for a change in environment and not so much a turning away from half of the human race.

Okay, Vernique…thanks, but what’s your point?

I’m glad you asked, beautiful!

I can tell you from experience that without purposeful, godly, wise, and committed friendships with women, my marriage would’ve gone downhill on like…day 15.

Before getting married I relied HEAVILY on a small group of married women to pray for me and give me wise council as I prepared to take the biggest leap of my life.

After getting married, all I did was go to school and go home…that was it. I needed friends to call me and force me out of my routine (which eventually drove me halfway crazy, by the way) and remind me that I was more than a grad student and wife.    

I also needed women in my life for the hard moments. My friends listen to me vent or cry, and then speak straight from the heart of God (aka tell me if I’m trippin), encourage me, and give me solid advice and correction on what to do next.

Let’s be clear, your friends shouldn’t know all of your marital business. Each friend should serve different purposes; but they all should build up the various parts of you that help you become a better wife.

We cannot rely on husbands to be partners, best friends, shopping buddies, co-parents, boyfriends, girlfriends, counselors, financial advisers, pastors, and everything else! That’s a lot of pressure on one relationship.

Your husband can be a lot of things to you, but he cannot be EVERYTHING. Friends serve as another opportunity for more of your needs to be met in a healthy way.

Now I do want to make this point as well: Your friendships should not pull you away from your spouse.

Those jealous friends…

The ones who seem to have something negative to say about your spouse…

The ones who almost seem a little happy when you guys disagree…

Yeah…they gotta go, sis.  

If your friends aren’t cheering on your marriage and are anything less than enthusiastic about your spouse then:

Outside of that exception, I truly believe that purposeful friendship is NECESSARY for successful marriage.  You cannot do this alone.  Make girlfriends great again, ladies.