When we honestly ask ourselves which people in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. -Henri Nouwen
Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What?! You too? I thought I was the only one!” -C.S. Lewis
Have you ever stopped to consider the ingredients of deep friendship? Each is important to the fullness of friendship and redemptive community. Just like you can bake a cake forgetting to add the eggs - the result will be cake-like, but perhaps not the cake you intended. The ingredients of deep friendship, Redemptive Sisterhood, matter.
Cultivating Redemptive Sisterhood takes time. Perhaps you’ve experienced making a friend quickly, experiencing the delight of the aforementioned C.S. Lewis quote with a woman you’ve met. And yet it is the intentional getting together and sharing life and the deeper matters of the heart over weeks and months that deepens friendship, moving it from ‘Hey, we could be friends,’ to someone you call when you’re experiencing the dark night of the soul as described by the Spanish monk Saint John of the Cross.
Cultivating Redemptive Sisterhood takes intentionality. Deep friendships are forged in the face of loss, grief, repair, as well as in the joy and celebration, as we care for each other, remaining fully present, intentionally exploring our own stories and each other’s stories. It is far too easy to listen and quickly respond with pearls of wisdom or scripture. It takes more energy, time, curiosity, and wisdom to allow yourself to stay present to the pain, to ask good questions, experience empathy, to weep with those who weep, joining with each other in the moments that present themselves.
Cultivating Redemptive Sisterhood takes commitment. In these days of social media, sound bytes, short attention spans, and demands on time, it is not unusual to have many casual acquaintances. May we even dare say that often the semester Bible study culture perpetuates this? When you commit to investing your time and your heart with the women in your group, experiencing the messy and hard times as well as celebrating the good with and for each other, over time you will have endured and experienced much together. Making this a priority - a commitment - means seizing these opportunities to be together, to get to know each other, to care for one another, and to build a redemptive sisterhood that could last a lifetime!
