Sorry Guys …

Sorry gentlemen, but this one is for the ladies.

My dear, beloved sisters…those of you I know, and those I do not…I’ve been noticing a trend over the last few years, and I feel it incumbent upon me to address it.

I have always considered myself a lone wolf. Yet, as my wedding approached, I realized I am a pack animal at heart.

I still glow with love and affection when I think about the group of women who came around me as I prepared to change my life forever.

They loved on me without
artifice, judgement, or any hint
of selfish desire. For each of them,
I will remain forever grateful.

You see, sister, I have spent much of my life feeling the constant need to compete with other women in order to prove myself. To prove that I am the smartest, the strongest, the funniest, the go-to that everyone wants to rely on.

But at what cost?

I jilted other women in my desperate effort to prove that I am “the best.” I damaged otherwise beautiful connections for the sake of my own image.

Be honest with yourself … Have you done the same?

When I met Jack, I changed. I had a man who validated me and to whom I have never, ever needed to prove myself. I now felt safe to just be me. So I relaxed.

Ladies … it should not have
taken me meeting a man to relax
and exist as God intended.

There is a Guy who will validate you, and approve of you, who is always with you.

You are the bride of Christ.

And as such, you should always know that you are enough, and that you have nothing to prove.

Consider Naomi and Ruth. I know a lot of couples choose to use the following passage in their wedding. And that’s a beautiful thing.

But consider, sisters, what it would look like to have such a relationship with a friend, sister, mother or mother-in-law, cousin, and so on.

Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.
Ruth 1:16-17

Loyalty.
Consistency.
Reliability.
This is love.

On my wedding day, some of the women who I hold the most dear gathered around me and prayed for me and my marriage to Jack. It was one of the purest moments of love I have ever known.

Ladies, we should always love on each other like this. The enemy pits us against each other through comparison and competition. But, when we exist in unity and prayer, we are much stronger for it.

Honestly, walking down that aisle, I felt stronger. I felt steady. Not just because my earthly and heavenly fathers were physically and emotionally holding me up. Or just because the best man I have ever known was waiting for me at the end of it.

Having my pack behind me gave me courage to face that monumental life change.