Part 2 - Are Your Friendships Sacred? {They Should Be}

Now, the flip-side of the coin, and the other-side-of-the-moon-side of my heart.

Part 1 of this two-parter fell along the lines of autonomy in healthy relationships. No one should be allowed to write their name on your foot. (Um...Toy Story? Get it? Never mind.)

In other words, I don't own you.

And yes, the less I "need" you, the healthier my relationship to Christ must be.

But there will come a day when I will need you. So much. There will come a day when, no matter how deeply and well I honor my marriage, nothing can substitute for the love and compassion another woman can lavish on my heart. Home girl needs her homies.

Yeyah.

Okay, I'll stop. I'm so white. I shouldn't even try, but I keep on trying.

The fact that we live in a broken world doesn't escape me. Sure, if you are married, that man is designed to be your Most Significant Other. But what if you are divorced? Let's be real. June Cleaver would creep me out a little, if she lived next door. Leave It To Beaver families don't populate our cities...or our churches.

Under normal (and even sub-normal) circumstances, no one can replace a mother or father, and if someone attempts to be more important in your life than your family, you should be suspect of motive.

But more often than we care to know, circumstances are not normal. Sometimes, a relationship is broken beyond repair, and spiritual mothers and fathers must step in to give a love and sense of identity and yes, necessary correction, that would otherwise be entirely non-existent. The family of God is a very real entity, and urgently important.

My neighbors to one side are raising their grandchildren, because their daughter keeps needing to detox, and can't take care of her own babies.

Down the street, a mom sent her young son to us, to ask if he could shoot basketball on the goal in our front yard...because, he said, his parents were fighting that afternoon, and might get a divorce.

Across the street, her elderly husband just died. And her grown (wealthy) son is stealing all her dead husband's tools.

These aren't ordinary times we are living in. It is more vital than ever to have a support system of relationships...people willing to go the distance.

I also think its wonderful to have girlfriends who are willing to put on a ball cap and dark sunglasses and go threaten someone who has hurt you.

I feel sorry for those not part of a local church. They got no people to threaten people for them.

Not that any of my home girls have done that for me. Yet. Prank phone calls? Maybe. As of now, though, no one has actually threatened my enemies.

But at least they want to. And if anyone hurts them?

Hold. Me. Back.





Written for you with love...

Sheila Atchley

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