The Girlfriends Guide

I am back from India and let me tell yall, India does something to me that I can't describe. I wrote this post about how good girlfriends change your life before I went and I am so excited to share it with you. MY girlfriends are the reason I am kind and brave. And I just went to India with one that has become a lifelong friend. Hope you enjoy this!!

                                                        The Girlfriend's Guide

So many times women say to me, “I'm sad. I'm lonely. I'm depressed. I'm lost. No one is there
for me. My husband sucks.” Or so on.
I ask, do you have good women in your life? Have you found your tribe?
If the answer is no, start there.
Y'all, we were created to be relational. We were meant for connection, vulnerability, love, and
friendship.
It is not an extracurricular. It is not a when-i-have-time category lumped in with working out and
cleaning out the junk drawer.
It's important.
In the beginning, God Herself looked at man and said No! Not good enough--- You need a
partner. You need a relationship. Companionship. And of course, God being God, knew that a
woman was the exact thing that would make all creation GOOD.
Battaboom.Battabang.
Here we are all these years later and more lonely, more isolated, scared, and depressed then
we've ever been.
We say we don't have time for friends. But I'm telling you, you're life depends on it.
Stats on isolation, loneliness, and brokenness are skyrocketing.

Here is my attempt to convince you that creating a tribe, building a network, finding your soul
sisters is as important if not more important than finding a spouse or a job.
Girlfriends breathe life into you. They are air. You cannot live without oxygen.
Don't let this give you anxiety if you are currently girlfriendless. Just keep reading.
Megan. Erica. Heather. They are my sisters. The girl gang. My tribe. From them extends even
more incredible women I cherish. I had eleven bridesmaids and a man of honor. My tribe lives
all over the world. Come in all shapes and sizes. They range from stay-at-home wives and
moms to doctors, nurses, business women, teachers, dentists, bosses, CEO’s, world changers, and leaders.
I don't discriminate when it comes to girlfriends. Girlfriends are the bread and wine of life. Staples.
Ultimately if you had no other drink, and no other food you would survive off girlfriends. They are
like Netflix and ice cream. Chips and salsa.

You just need them.
Period.
Throughout your life you will find that men come and go, jobs come and go, relationships are
rocky- but girlfriends are your forever.

My college roommates and I are sisters til death do us part. I pledged to them before I pledged to my husband.
Chosen sisters. The best kind. And the greatest part of being an adult. Adults get to chose who
they want to be friends with. It's a miracle.
You don't need many. Just a small group of women will do. I think it's better when these people don't look like you or talk like you but whose hearts are the same. But you get to decide what's best for you.
We are all messy. We love each other's husbands. Not because it's easy but because it's
important. There's nothing worse than making a girlfriend chose between you and her marriage.
We are each other priorities. We do Holidays. We love each other's children like our own. We
pray for and with each other. We steal each other's clothes.
We cry with and for each other. A lot. When I was in a season of loss, I could not physically pray
another prayer or cry another tear, They did it for me. Girlfriends are the intermediaries between
you and God when you and God are at odds.
Because that will happen. If you're honest with yourself, at some point you'll find yourself
wrestling with you're own salvation, faith, God, whatever you believe in- something or someone
will lead you to doubt, to mania, to dark times and good girlfriends will be your mirrors. They will
remind you who you are when you can't seem to remember.

I've been there many times; on the bathroom floor. When I was pregnant and all ended in loss
they were there. The times I started bleeding and I couldn't bring myself to disappoint Robbie
yet another time, they talked me through it. They gave me the words when I had none.
Here's the secret to finding the worlds best girlfriends: You have to be a really good friend, in
order to have a good friend. It is a sacrifice.
This is true ALL OF THE TIME. Having good girlfriends is expensive. It takes time. Long
enduring hours that are not always fun. But always worth every single second.
In order to have a friend, you must be a friend- I'm sure you've heard that before.
Or the Law of Attraction.
Stop looking for perfection in your friends. That does not exist.
Here's what I look for in a friend:

I prefer the messy ones. The ones with foul language, and big hearts. The ones who drink too
much on Sundays and take you to church in phone conversations. I prefer dog lovers, and
laughers, passionate, creatives.
Women who are willing to screw up big time and admit their mistakes, women who love hard
and stay true, women who don't spend their time talking about small things like someone else’s
Instagram account but who fill conversations with big ideas and ways to heal, women whose
fight is not against other women but against the evils of the world like human trafficking and the
water crisis, women who say on the first night of friendship the things that happen to them
during labor are irreparable. I am not that picky. I don't even require you to be a woman. One of my best friends is a straight man with a wonderful fiancé and the sweetest baby girl who knows me as Aunt B.
Many of us will go our entire lives waiting for the perfect friends to show up at our doorstep
believing that there aren't any good girlfriends in the world anymore. We will blame social media
for the demise of connection and we will settle for small talk and gossip because we don't like
looking each other in the eye and saying, Hi, I need a friend.
I see it everyday and it gives me stomach cramps.

I did not grow up a girl's girl. I was an only child and liked being, no scratch that, LOVED being
alone to recharge. When I wasn't alone, I preferred hanging out with outcasts or dudes. And I for
the life of me could not like a girlfriend longer than a year. So I have had to pay close attention and work hard to find my tribe.
I thought it was always them, and I won't say that it wasn't because the girls, I went to
high school with were, well, high school girls. And high school girls have never been my cup of tea.
Even in high school.
Give me a sleeping baby and I'll be her friend. Give me a needy toddler that wants to play tea
party for six hours, I'll call her a friend. Give me an awkward middle school kid, I'll invest in that
friendship like the stock market. But do not under any circumstance send me back to high
school and tell me to make a friend.
High School is so in between. You aren't a child but you aren't an adult and high school is filled
with people that act old, and talk young.
I am an old soul. In high school my face and body were 14, 15, and 16 years old. But my brain and my attitude were that of an 87 year sassy grandma that couldn't understand why all these young
people chased after boys with their cutoff Jean short underwear that barely passed as clothing.
Young people, Jean shorts that are so short that your pockets hang out ARE NOT SHORTS.
They are denim panties. And you are wearing your panties around in public.
Please don't.

I met my girl gang in college. I became their fourth roommate because I lasted in the dorms as a
freshman a whopping two nights.
Yes, you read that right. TWO LONG MISERABLE nights. Listen, I can do a lot of things. I have
slept in 102 degree Haitian heat with no air conditioning and rats the size of dogs rummaging through my luggage, but I COULD NOT endure the dorms.
Living in a dorm is the equivalent of living in a minimum security prison cell. After two nights, I was done.

Three weeks later I moved into the Sioux house and met the girl gang. We called ourselves the
Wild Banshees. And that we were. Seven years, four marriages, two babies, a lot of loss, over a
dozen moves, a few career changes, and not a beat goes by when we are together. We skip the
small talk and go straight for wine, how's your sex life, and are your in-laws getting any better
talk. We laugh. A lot. No one makes you laugh more than your girlfriends. Sometimes you have
tough conversations. You are each other's secret keepers. You hold each other
close. Sometimes your girlfriends are the only people who can get you off the bathroom floor
when things get dark. And all the time, your girlfriends are the ones who make you belly laugh until you pee your pants in public.
And like wine, they get better with age.
If you don't have them- go get them. Find them. Search every corner of every inch of the earth
to find your tribe. It will be what saves you when life gets messy. What makes nights turn into
memories that last a lifetime.
Your girlfriends will stop you from jumping off the clip, or sending a nasty email to your employer. They'll remind you that what happens in Vegas actually does come home with you.
They'll steal your clothes, and clean your kitchen. They'll pour themselves a glass of wine
without asking. They don't expect to be served or tiptoed around. They will be the ones you
don't clean your house for. They'll be the ones at the hospital when you go into labor. They'll be the ones standing beside you when you say I-Do. Or waiting in your living room with your family
when things fall apart.
My girlfriends and I do a Skype Bible study every week. I use the words Bible study very loosely
because 9 out of ten times we don't open the Bible. Our husbands find this Bible study absurd.
They say they've never seen a Bible study without the actual use of a Bible.
What do they know?!
We show up for each other weekly, sometimes monthly because we give each other space to
be busy, to travel, to be tired. But we always make time to invest in each other's lives.
Now, if you've got a solid group of women in your life, invite them, gather them, cherish them,
and make your love grow.
Be vulnerable. Go deeper. Hold each other close. Celebrate each other victories. And feel each
other's loss. There is nothing truer, or lovlier than when two or more women come together.
If you haven't found that group of women and you're craving just that, make it a priority to invest
in someone this week. Pick a woman, any woman, at the playground or the grocery store, at
work or wherever you workout, it doesn't really matter where you find each other, it only matters
that you do. Invite them to dinner- at your house or a restaurant.
Listen to her. Ask her questions about her life, her husband, her children, her job.
You will be emailing me telling me I'm a miracle worker!!  I saw an Instagram post that there's an app for making friends now. I think you pay a monthly subscription.
I'm giving you this for free.
Just talk to people. Look them in the eye. Tell them something deep. Be real. Be raw. Speak
from your scars. And laugh. Really laugh out loud.
Some of you might need to start with yourselves. Some of you are so hard on yourself, you can
barely look in the mirror. It is very hard to love someone when you don't love the very person
you spend the most time with; yourself. Be your own friend. Enjoy your own company. People
love being around people that don't NEED something all the time. That are just willing to be a
positive light in the world, not always trying to take-take-take. Energy attracts energy. So if the
people in your life aren't life giving, you might need to reexamine why. Everything flows from
within.
Let's recap.
Friends are important.
Be a friend. Make a friend.
Love yourself so that you have love to give others.

So much love to you!

BAR