Trusted Advice

Trusted Advice

The heartfelt counsel of a friend is as sweet as perfume and incense.

“Carol, I need your advice,” I said, pouring out my current parenting conundrum to her over the phone as I sat one early morning in the parking lot of my law firm. Carol was a mother of adult children, grandmother to children who are in their teens, and she was just the woman I needed in the midst of an ongoing power struggle with my toddler. She loved Jesus and loved me and had experienced the full parenting spectrum—something the women in my peer group lacked. And, most importantly, she was gentle and encouraging in her advice to me, never making me feel less than.

Parenting comparison is an especially insidious trap, at least for me. I want so desperately to be a good mom that I’m particularly vulnerable to self-doubt and recrimination in my parenting, silently and internally exaggerating my weaknesses while minimizing my strengths so that I cannot always see clearly. Because this is an area where I trip easily into comparison, I’ve learned to be exceptionally careful about whom I turn to for parenting advice. I need women who love my children, who love me, and who can accurately reflect the situation back to me when my internal lens is distorted. What I don’t need is advisers who exacerbate the problem.

To whom do you turn when your internal lens is distorted? Do you confide in women who play into your distress, making themselves feel better as they make you feel worse? Do you confide in women who always rush to your side, justify your feelings and position, and affirm your distorted lens—even if you’re not demanding blind loyalty?

As I learn to recognize where my weaknesses lurk, I reserve conversations about those areas for women who listen carefully, who ask clarifying questions rather than rush to advise, who never blame or shame, who always turn me back to scriptural truth and lead me to the feet of Christ. I seek out women whose wisdom leaves me feeling encouraged and strengthened, whose words—even in gentle admonishment—are life-giving and filled with the sweet perfume of hope.

— Julie

— Today’s Act of Friendship —

Where do your comparison weaknesses lurk? Ask God to reveal them to you, and then to reveal which women in your life can be trusted to give you an accurate assessment when your perspective is distorted.