Girlfriends

Girlfriends

A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.

Ecclesiastes 4:12

Are there any mean girls in your past? Though many of us have suffered through our share of difficult relationships with other females, the good news is that many of us have also benefited from having great girlfriends. When a group of women aged 45-55 was recently asked to rate their optimism about the future, 25 percent gave themselves a 10 out of 10 score, indicating that they expect good things in coming years. Only 17 percent of men in this age range were as optimistic. What’s the reason for the gender gap? Researchers think it boils down to the fact that women tend to have stronger social circles than men. (By the way, studies also show that religious women tend to live longer than nonreligious ones because of the opportunity for increased social interaction through church.)

“The most optimistic women,” reports Gail Sheehy, “spend about six hours a day in social interaction. Some of that time may be with a friend at work, with family, a husband or children, or with a partner, a love interest or neighbors. But girlfriends are the bedrock. The most optimistic women have an inner circle of anywhere from four to a dozen friends who ‘have their back’ and will drop everything to help in a crisis.”^a

As Sheehy points out, these are not merely Facebook friends or LinkedIn contacts but real flesh-and-blood women who are there for each other. This truth has certainly been borne out in my own life. In fact, I’ve been blessed not only with girlfriends but sisters in Christ, women who love me and pray for me. I know that I can tell them anything without fear that they will pass along secrets or talk behind my back. Not only that, but my friends make a great sounding board whenever I need advice.

If you have friends like that, give thanks to God today for each one. If not, invest time and energy to start making some, asking God to guide you to other women, remembering, as Francis Bacon remarked, that friends can double your joy and halve your grief.

Lord, thank you for every single girlfriend you have ever given me, especially for my sisters in Christ. Enable me to be as good a friend to them as they are to me. Help me to be open to forging new friendships as you lead.

^a Gail Sheehy, “Girlfriends Are Key to Women’s Optimism,” USA Today, October 4, 2011.