Friendship — Blog

I can't think of many greater joys in life than sitting down with a really good book!

Welcome to my monthly book club. Nothing is required of you but I would like to share some of my favorites with you. I have included everything from a great audible.com listen to the perfect beach read. I've included a favorite kids book in our house and a great Women's Bible Study. Enjoy!

1. Audible.com Choice: Accidental Saints by Nadia Bolz-Weber

This is a great read if you are just looking to pick up a good book, but it made my audible.com choice this month because of the great experience that can be had by listening. The book is narrated by the author and there is something about her reading her book that adds a depth and dimension to her great humor and beautiful stories. It's not your typical religious read. There is a fair amount of curse words (not the book for you if that kind of language offends you) and her attitude is often confrontational and angry. She is a former stand up comic turned Pastor and her encounters with a drag queen, a church-loving agnostic and a gun-toting member of the NRA impact the complicated relationship she has with a God she feels called to serve and consistently resists.

2. Kids Choice: Bug Zoo by Andy Harkness

I am as girly as they come. Bows, tutus, make up and pearls have always been my happy place. When I gave birth to two tiny humans, I was elated. I was also terrified because they were boys and I don't like "boy stuff". They teach me everyday to find joy in the creepy, crawly, messy and dirty things that make up their favorite things. This book is a winner in our house. It has colorful pictures and a very cute story line. If you have a child like Cade, they will find great joy in the wealth of creatures named throughout the book and if you have a child like Case, they will find great joy in the process of how they can catch their own bugs. Spoiler Alert-the little boy learns that all creatures are beautiful when they are out in the world and not locked away for our enjoyment. Who doesn't love a good message?

3. Bible Study: Make Over: Revitalizing the Many Roles You Fill (A Modern Girl's Bible Study) by Jen Hatmaker

If you have been thinking about having a women's Bible Study or supper club with a purpose but just don't know where to start, I highly recommend you start here. There are several books in the series but I particularly love this one. It's only a 5 session book and an easy read. It follows the stories of many women in the Bible who faced the same balancing struggle that we face today. The study takes a look at what the Bible says about motherhood, self discovery, marriage and friendship while told with the distinctive wit and humor that Jen Hatmaker brings out in her writing. I've taught this study so let me know if you need ideas or have questions!

4. Series: Woman's Murder Club by James Patterson

I love books that come in series. I enjoy getting to know the characters and follow them on a bit of a longer journey. The good ones stick with you long after you've closed the pages of the book and a series allows me the joy of getting just a little more. This is one of my favorite series to follow. There are now a total of 14 books and a new one comes out each year. There is an endearing heroine, strong friendships, suspense, action and romance. It's not a girl's only series. My dad reads them too!

5. Beach Read: Tempting Fate by Jane Green

I'm headed to the beach on a family vacation soon and can not wait. The beach is my happy place. I find so much peace in laying out under an umbrella (because I'm white and skin cancer isn't my jam) with a great book while listening to the water. Jane Green is one of my favorite authors for a good beach read. She is witty and funny while managing to put a Lifetime movie in book form. I will warn you, I mean that last sentence. This book is about an affair so its not a PG book. But it is beautifully messy and explores the world of boundaries and self discovery as we move through life trying to figure out what can matter most.

What are you reading these days???

Messy Grace equals life with girlfriends.

This one is hard for me. This next sentence is ugly and truthful and leaves me feeling far more vulnerable than I'm comfortable with, but here goes.

I've spent the majority of my life uninterested in the real value of girlfriends.

There, I've said it and I've offended some of the great girlfriends that God has brought into my life because I just stabbed them in the heart by saying...by the way, I just didn't know your value. But it's the messy truth. I don't say this because I've had terrible luck with finding friends. I was on the drill team in high school and even in a sorority in college. I went to Girl's State with 500 other girls in the state of Texas for 10 days in the summer of my junior year in high school. God has placed some of the most incredible women and girlfriends in my life from the get go. I had them....I just didn't know what that meant. Dating had a purpose...find the person I was going to spend the rest of my life with, build a family with. But the concept of a life long girlfriend was harder for me to understand.

Take my sister. When I was 3, she entered the family. I distinctly remember standing in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot in Denton and being heartbroken that the baby coming out of my mommy's tummy was a girl and not a brother. But out she came. And she was everything I wasn't. She was brave, she was strong, she was rough and tough and she didn't have a girly bone in sight. While I was wearing pink tutus and mom's make up, Courtney was playing soccer and digging in the dirt. God gave me my first girlfriend and all I wanted to do for the better part of 14 years, was give her back. Bless our parents. All of our bickering and fighting could have sent even the most well put together human being into the loony bin. But she was my sister and I might not like her but I was going to love her. When I went off to college it turns out I gained some perspective. What used to drive me crazy, I longed to have back at my side everyday. I learned to appreciate her athleticism and enjoy her laid back style. Fast forward to now and I can barely sit in my chair because I've agreed to do a workout program with her. She is stronger, she has way more grit and she is dragging me with her because there is a loyalty and authentic love that comes with true friendship. I want to be fit and I want to be healthy and she is going to stand by my side and help me get there even though it slows her down. I, painfully, have to credit Courtney with hitting me over the head with the real value of girlfriends.

I haven't always had this whole friendship with girls thing down. Boys were easier for me. They seemed to be less caught up in competition with me (and I'm not competitive) so those teenage who's prettier, more popular, better singer, etc... years were hard. I hung around with the boys because they didn't care. God, however, knew I needed girlfriends in my life and often plopped them right where I had to embrace them and let them in. Some are probably reading this right now. They were my BEST friends. I have an all in personality so many of them were everything during a particular time. Whether we were riding around the neighborhood pretending to own the place, going on "group" dates with the others because none of us were allowed to go alone or toilet papering the house of the boy who broke our hearts in high school, I had some of the most loyal girls by my side and all of my memories include one of them. I'm from a small town (*it's really not all that small but when you sandwich a town between two major cities, it feels small). My husband and I have chosen to raise our children here. I see lots of these women out and about at the grocery store, down on the square or just eating out. I used to feel sad. Why didn't I appreciate them more? Why didn't I value our friendship enough to not let it fade? But I've learned that this whole idea of God's grace is real. The truth is...I'm the luckiest girl to have been touched by so many great friendships, and appreciating the imprint they left on who I am today proves that along the way, I really learned the value that they added to my life. Now when I see them I can't help but giggle at some of the greatest memories and be so happy to know that our paths still cross.

About 2 months into my marriage I figured out, like being hit by a bus figured out, that I needed girlfriends. I love my husband. He's my best friend, my partner in life and he drives me nuts at least twice a week. I realized that being the best me was going to require a group of women who would call me out on my dumb stuff, cry when I had my first baby and didn't want to wake up and live life, and stand by me when Clay was diagnosed with cancer. Shows like Sex in the City give us a glimpse into the TV world of girlfriends. There is the independent one, the sexually progressive one, the perfect mommy, the housewife, the career woman... All great things but the truth is, we all have a little bit of most of those women in us. To say that we can partner 4 women into one person and it's always going to play out the same way is a bit...well...wrong. Any given day I could be the put together business woman and then tomorrow, the hot mess who can't seem to get her kids out of the door in under an hour. Friendship is messy. It is a covenant with each other to dive into the mess and sort it out through grace together. My mom has a great group of women in her life. They are all very different (however mom and her friend Rosemary do dress alike 3 out of every 4 times I see them). They craft together, eat together, travel together and live life together. They started this when I was in about 3rd grade. They all had girls of similar ages so we went to church camp and they were off to spend the week together. I know now how valuable that must be to my mom and am thankful she has passed along that wisdom to me. Her best friend from growing up has been in my life from the get go. Her girls were the cool older girls that took me ice skating and she and Rosemary hosted my bridal luncheon. My mom gets it and I'm thankful for that picture of the importance of girlfriends.

This is all on my mind because last weekend I took a girl's trip to Austin. This is the third since I've been married and each time I am reminded more and more of what the women in my life add to my story. This trip I had my sister, my best friend from college and her younger sister and a great friend who I have found in the last few years. Each one of them brings all kinds of sass to who I am and wouldn't hesitate to comment on this blog with my faults and then tell you great things about me that I don't deserve. I was worn out before this trip. In the last few months, I've changed careers, redone part of my house, traveled out of the country for the first time without my children and Clay and I have entered a season of go and do. Reflection and rest are just not on the menu very often. I've started this journey with some of the things I've told you about in the past few blogs but I haven't really felt very connected. I left exhausted with my life and set out for an unknown purpose. We didn't have a great plan for this trip or any real purpose. Just a girl's trip. Me 10 years ago wouldn't have done it. Why leave my husband and work if there is no point to the trip? Why stay in a house on the lake with no real direction and no real outcome? It wasn't like we were going to see a concert or go to a specific location while we were there, it's just a 4 hour drive away from my house.

Saturday morning of this trip is the best illustration of why. Jillian, my newest friend, suggested we all zip line. If any of you have done a ropes course with me you are probably laughing. I've been up in the trees more times than I can count and when it came to "challenge by choice", I usually chose to cheer from solid ground. But I wanted to go. Something in me said you need to do this and you need to do it without fear. Tabitha (college friend) was less than thrilled and after a shoe swap around the house we were all in the car to go. We arrived and when the time came I was the first to step up from our group to go. I jumped off and never looked back. It was high up. It was a lot of trust in two guys that we didn't know who seemed to be a bit eclectic from their woodsy lifestyle. But those few hours in the trees with my people, my girlfriends, was everything I needed. I experienced God in their fear and in my own as we cheered each other on, hugged close to the trees and got a short glimpse of the true beauty of world we live in.

I left my weekend feeling filled. Filled with the grace left behind in the hugs of the women that don't care how not perfect I am and the faith that any one of them will be my person any day or night. Because that is who we are. We are women who make the choice to be different. Some of my girlfriends make all of their baby food themselves and some, like me, opened the pouch bought at Kroger and handed it on over. Some of my girlfriends love to spend every waking hour with their significant others and send selfies to each other through out the day when they are apart and some, like me, are just glad to know all three boys in my house are still alive around 10 pm. We don't judge, and when we do we give ourselves grace and vow to love each other tomorrow, better. My girlfriends are vast. They are smart. They are strong. They all have different stories and they all could conquer anything they wanted because we have each other's backs.

Whether you have a "Sex in the City" group that religiously meets to fulfill your roles or you are just now figuring out you need girlfriends. May God bless you with feisty, sassy, and loyal women to hold you up.

Monthly Book Club

Girlfriends...who needs them?

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