Can I confess something to you guys? Sometimes I feel like a vacuum. You know, like WHEN THE FLIP DID I GET SO NEEDY? Why am I sucking so much out of other people?
Seriously. When? And why?
Every year I pick a word at the beginning of the year that I hope to embody that year. This year I'm picking authenticity.
Some of you may have seen that I ordered Lara Casey's Powersheet goal setting system for 2015. One of my biggest goals this year is to stop focusing on what's all out of whack and chaotic about my own life, and reach out to encourage other women who are experiencing the chaos of their own lives. It's so easy to shut down when your own life is all topsy turvy but here is what I know about life and about God. Shutting down, turning inward and closing people off isn't the answer. It doesn't help, it doesn't make anything better and it's in opposition to what God wants for us.
I desire and crave so much an authentic community of women - one where there is honesty and love and support and it's messy and gritty and real. A number of years ago I led a Life Group with a friend of mine called Confessions of a Good Christian Girl, based on a book of the same name. It was my intention then to get a small group of women to experience the freedom of unleashing their burdens, their fears, their guilt and secrets - it was my intention for women to find that they were STILL loved and needed and valuable to others even if their deepest, darkest secrets were out in the light.
It didn't turn out quite the way I hoped, but I think it was a decent starting point. And still, deep down inside of me I feel a stirring for more of this type of community. I am dreaming big this year, dreaming with a couple other like minded women about what this could look like.
What if we as women sat across from each other in coffee shops and living rooms and drank coffee and stopped talking about new hair color and what our kids were up to. What if instead we spilled our fears, our desires, our hopes and dreams and talked about what holds us back? What if we stopped viewing each other as the competition and started viewing each other as sisters and friends in Christ? What if we stopped trying to BE the competition, stopped taking things that don't belong to us and stopped trying to outdo one another?
I am beyond fortunate to have a few close girlfriends who know everything - seriously, everything - about me. Every mistake I've made, every shameful secret I want hidden from the world, every struggle I have, every ounce of turmoil I've experienced. And that's amazing, it is. But I want and crave more. Not just for myself, but for all the women I know and will come to know. It is so freeing to have a friend in Christ who is there for you no matter what.
So if you're female, and you're reading this - will you leave a comment here or on my Facebook page telling me what this would look like for you? Do you crave a community like this? What would it look like, feel like, be like? Will you pray for me and for those that are dreaming big with me? What holds you back from being authentic and open with other women? What are the hurts you've experienced and what are the gifts you've received when you've been in a solid community of female friendship?
I would love to know what a beautiful community of authentic women could accomplish, in the name of Christ. I imagine big, amazing and glorious things and I think we can make it happen.
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