Two friends were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey, they had an argument and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who had been slapped was hurt but without saying anything, wrote in the sand: Today my best friend slapped me in the face.
They kept on walking until they found an oasis where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning. The friend saved her. After she recovered from the near drowning, she wrote on a stone: Today my best friend saved my life.
The friend who had slapped and saved her best friend asked: After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now you write on stone. Why?
The other friend replied: When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness and waters of love can easily wash it away. When someone does something good for us we should engrave it in stone where it can remain for years to come.
From this wonderful tale of two friends we learn how important it is to write our hurts in sand and to carve our benefits in stone.
This is particularly important for women who, by their very nature, tend to be wounded more easily than men. This isn’t to say that men do not get hurt but that the inherent differences between men and women mean that each has a more specific response to experiences than does the other. It is the understanding that what makes women unique also makes women vulnerable. Women are made to be channels of love, selflessly given through acts of charity and as givers of life, which inevitably translates into a vulnerability of sorts.
It is never in a woman’s best interest to close herself up or “protect” herself with walls as this diminishes or even takes away her God-given “womanly” traits: her ability to “know” the things of God and man—what John Paul II called her “feminine genius.”
Rather, a woman serves God and herself best when she learns to experience the fullness of life as God intended and learns to write her sorrow in sand and her joy in stone.
Recently God brought into my life a woman who I now call “friend.” I spent some time with her recently where we enjoyed a cup of tea and chatting. As I left I was buoyed by our visit. It got me to thinking how perfectly she fit into my life and reflect on the question: What sort of friends does a woman “need” in her life?
I know lots of women: the mothers of all the friends of my sons; women with whom I’ve worked and those with whom I’ve worshipped. There are women neighbors and there are women relatives. I’ve been blessed by meeting women at speaking engagements who have touched my heart.
But friends?
I have but a few.
I remember once being told that at the end of your life, if you can count on one hand your true friends, you will have been very lucky.
I guess that was the secular way of saying you have been very blessed.
At 54 years old, I see that I have been very blessed.
If we’ve got one hand to work off of, I believe these are the five friends each woman needs:
1. A woman needs a friend with whom she can pray. Not just words over a meal but the sort of prayers that erupt from the depths of the heart and soul.
2. A woman needs a friend with whom she can laugh. Not just a chuckle but a belly laugh—or better yet, the giggle of a little girl released and loved.
3. A woman needs a friend with whom she can cry. Not just tears that rim the eyes but the painful cry that seems to have no end but is met with kindness and compassion.
4. A woman needs a friend to whom she can expose her weakest self and still be loved. Not just the superficial “I’m not perfect” stuff but the real, true self who has been to the edge and back.
5. A woman needs a friend for whom no judgment exists. Not just in offering non-judgmental words to a dilemma but someone who simply could not see her friend through any eyes other than the eyes of Christ.
The thing about these five friends is that God gives them to us when we need them, if only we ask. Like my new friend. We may not be on the phone everyday but somehow I know she is just a phone call away.
There are seasons in which friends come and go.
And that’s okay.
I had a friend from my teen years that I’ve tried to connect with here and there even though we have nothing in common—other than having gone to middle school together. I liked the idea of saying we had been friends for 40 some years; but I’ve since realized that friendships aren’t marked by the length of time but by time they are in our lives.
