Retrospective Pondering

I wrote this Daybook on Saturday, offline, leaving just a few things to fill in once I had Internet. I pretty much didn't have Internet until now, back at home. So, bear with my cobbled together chronology of comments, please:-). Also, Katie used my big camera and took pictures all week, but they're very stuck somewhere between camera and here, so, you get iPhone shots...

Outside my window:  Crepe myrtle and hydrangeas in yards and around big porches, all on the way to the seashore. It’s mighty beautiful outside my window this week.

Listening to: Silence. Absolute silence, except for the occasional street noises and the whir of the ceiling fan. It is Saturday as I begin journaling here and we are in Bethany Beach. My girls have gone to the convention center in Ocean City with my friend Nicole, to watch her daughter dance. Since none of mine are dancing today, I opted to stay behind: to walk, to read, to write, to rest, and to have dinner ready when they get home. The quality and white space in my planner are both so strange to me right now....

Clothing myself in: Capris t-shirt, running shoes. I desperately need a shower. The heat index is around 100. I’ve already taken three walks for a total of 8 miles today. If I shower, I won’t walk again until we walk to church. If I don’t, I might squeeze one more in before everyone gets home…

Pondering:

He said, “There’s a sermon of John Donne’s I have often had cause to remember during my lifetime. He says, Other men’s crosses are not my crosses. We all have our own cross to carry and one is all most of us are able to bear. How much do you owe him, Vicky?

I replied slowly, “I don’t think of it in terms of owing, like paying a debt. The thing is—he needs me.

 “Grandfather looked away from me and out to sea, and when he spoke, it was as though he spoke to himself. “The obligations of normal human kindness – chesed, as the Hebrew has it – that we all owe. But there’s a kind of vanity in thinking you can nurse the world. There’s a kind of vanity in goodness.”

I could hardly believe my ears. “But aren’t we supposed to be good?”

“I’m not sure.” Grandfather’s voice was heavy. “I do know that we’re not good, and there’s a lot of truth to the saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” 

--Madeleine L’Engle, Ring of Endless Light

Carefully Cultivating Rhythm: We sat yesterday evening--Nicole and I and our five girls, with planners and highlighted pages all spread out--and we worked together to understand where we needed to be this week for this competition and how we’d manage time, meals, housekeeping duties, and the myriad of costumes. I feel like we have really good rhythm. We’ve done these competitions together so many times now that the familiarity is our friend. Also, we are staying in the home of a mutual friend, and we are surrounded by gracious loveliness that makes this all so much better.

Creating By Hand:  This week, sewing will be limited to costume repair. Cooking is a little creative, but I’m not making anything that isn’t well-tested and already favorited. So, true creativity, if it happens, will happen with words, I think.

I might be finding my words again. I’d like that. I’ve missed them. 

[Real time edit: I do have words. Turns out, though, that I didn't even have time, place, or utilities to upload these words, so all the others are still stuck in my head. Next week. Maybe...]

Three books going

On my kindle: Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way. Since I feel like I could write a book on this topic and I’m exhausted by the mere idea of it, I’m really glad that Shauna Niequist did. I love her work and I’m looking forward to her new book. This is the only one I have not read, so I snatched it up when I saw the good Kindle deal.  

In my earbuds: I actually have two going in my earbuds right now. Emily suggested A Ring of Endless Light and it was the perfect length for our trip to and from the beach. Despite the fact that I knew it was the story of a family awaiting their grandfather’s death, I took a chance. Turns out, that wasn’t really a good idea. The subject matter of the book is handled in a way that is too mature for my girls to listen to collectively. I persevered through over an hour until a young man confided that he’d attempted suicide.  Then I clicked out before we went any further. Definitely not a good idea for the gathered audience right now.

However, it’s a really, really powerful book. I returned to it privately the next morning for the first of my morning walks. I’m immersed in a big way and it’s hard not to binge. I haven’t finished yet, but I think it might rank above A Grief Observed in ranking of books to read when grieving. Perhaps more accessible, certainly very useful with teenagers…

[Real time edit: I listened to the whole book while walking at the beach (and in the convention center, actually mostly in the convention center) and this book vaulted to my top five forever favorite books. I ordered the paperback version on Sunday and had it shipped to the beach house for Mary Beth, who dislike audiobooks.]

When I finish, I still have The House at Riverton going. Love that. [Finished that one, too, and started listening to Simply Tuesday again because it was already in my phone and I was walking. I like it even better the second time around.]

In my hands: I’m re-reading Colleen’s new book (reviewed in detail, here) I read it the first time using a digital advanced copy. It’s nice to hold it in my hands and meander through and mark it up. This one will be a classic in our household, which means I will require the reading of it…

Learning lessons in: Ah. I’m not quite sure really. But I think the Madeleine L’Engle quote above is the short form of the lesson I most need to learn. Last year, I think I picked up some crosses that aren’t mine to carry. I’ve grown so accustomed to the weight of them on my shoulders, and I’ve so adjusted my gait to compensate for their heaviness, that I’m finding it tricky to put them down. But I really need to learn how to do it.

Encouraging learning in: reading. Just reading. My girls are reading so much this summer. I feel sorry for Karoline, whose cast is making it hard for her to go or do anything with her sisters and friends, but I also see the silver lining. This will be the summer she learned how to find a friend in a book. That will serve her well forever.

She left her non-digital books at home this week and I didn't want her to take a Kindle to the convention center. Since she can't dance, she's got loads of down time alone. So, I walked to a bookstore on the beach and spent a pretty enchanted hour finding books for her. Kristin's mom is an elementary school teacher and she recommended a couple authors last week. I found them there in that sweet bookstore and brought them back for Kari. So she's got Walk Two Moons and Because of Winn-Dixie for the week. And that hour in that beautiful bookstore? I loved that hour so much!

Keeping house:  It’s always easier to keep house at the beach, isn’t it?

Crafting in the kitchen: I did some cooking ahead of time and did a whole lot of grocery shopping, so meals will come together easily. Last night, we had farm stand corn on the cob and tomato fresh from a nearby vine and potatoes crisped with olive oil. (Oh, and they had hamburgers, too, I guess, but I didn’t miss them;-)

To be fit and happy:  I’m walking and walking and walking and walking. Sometimes I run, but not often. The convention center is big and sprawling and I'm taking every opportunity to walk, both inside and out. [Real time edit: My fitbit tells me I've taken 128,768 steps in the last seven days. That's about 51 miles. Good week.]

Giving thanks: for Nicole. I know what a rare gift it is to have a friend who can live through the worst of weeks with you and then, the next year, agree without hesitation to enter into whatever might come, in the exact same place at the same time of year, even knowing that anniversary reaction is a very real thing and I’m just the one to have it…  

In the company of a friend, good memories are being made in a place where once the bad ones dominated my mind.

Living the Liturgy: Sarah Annie celebrates her name day this week. The church here at the beach is called St. Ann’s and they do make a fuss. Last year, we were here as the novena began. This year, we’ll be here when it ends. And there will be ice cream.

Planning for the week ahead:  Sometime next week, I think I'll see my husband again. Mike and I are in a stage of big family parenting that is very intense and very hands on. I'm betting that the preceding sentence will cause eyebrows to rise on foreheads of folks with five under ten. Yes, dear friends, you, too are also in an intense, hands-on period. Parenting teenagers is a different kind of hands-on and a different kind of intense. We've had to divide and conquer because they need us, but they are no longer gathered most of the time under our roof--all together. So, between his work travel and our kid travel, we keep missing each other. And our morning conversations look a little like this.

Links Worth Clicking

One thing I gave up when I cut my Facebook time to five minutes a day is sharing links. I can't just throw a link on my wall and walk away because I know what can happen in the comments. So, I'm not so much sharing there. Still, though, I read things I want to tell about...

Here are a few links I've bumped into recently. Maybe they'll interest you, too?

Distracting Ourselves to Death

This one starts with a general bash on TV, which is always hard to swallow in this house because, well, TV pays for the house;-). But once I pressed past that, it's a very good read on a question worth pondering, praying upon, and adjusting one's planner to answer: "To be or not to be. That is the question. To be alive to the goodness, truth and beauty which surrounds us, or not to be alive to it. To delight in the presence of Creation so that we might dilate into the presence of the Creator or to distract ourselves to death."

To  death. I think we might literally be distracting ourselves to death. First the soul slowly closes upon itself and then general inertia sets in. Slowly, we die.

You Don’t Need "Meternity" Leave to Be Happy—You Just Need to Love Someone Else More Than Yourself

"But the personal growth that results from motherhood isn’t a result of this self-care, as important as it may be. No, what transforms women into mothers isn’t self-care—it’s self-sacrifice.

On the surface, this seems utterly strange. How can focusing so intensely on the needs of someone else have such a transformative effect? How can spending so much time serving another person have the end result of making me more fully me?"

Because Life Doesn't give Do-Overs

I've been thinking A LOT about choices we make, particularly choices to do or not to do something. The research in this post fascinated me and I was particularly taken by the author's Portland anecdote. 

"We regret not acting when we had the chance, or we regret waiting too long. We regret not reaching out to a sibling, not pursuing that master’s degree, or not standing up to a bully at work. We don’t have as many regrets about the things we chose to do. Our actions usually become things that were meant to be, and even our poor choices teach us something. "

25 Books To Read When You Feel The World is Falling Apart

The first two books on this list are books we are reading this summer and I was commenting to a friend recently that they seem so perfect for these times. Clearly, I'm not alone. Anne has some great suggestions here. "Some of these works are precise depictions of realities as it stands; some are aimed for the heart. Some are calls to action. Some are hopeful, inspiring, redemptive—highlighting the glimmers of good in desperate, devastating situations."

Serving Without Resentment

Oh, Sally. Sometimes--lots of times--you read my mind and know exactly what to say.

"Over and over again through the years, my children have needed me, my love, my comfort, my time, my serving them–ONE MORE TIME. Yet, I have realized that there has never been, through all of my seasons as a mom, an end to their needs."

The Best Book of the Summer, By Far

Every once in a rare while, a book comes along that seeps into my soul. When it happens, it's an answer to prayer, a whisper of the Holy Spirit after i've been casting about, begging to hear Him. It is extraordinary.

A few months ago, a draft copy of my friend Colleen Mitchell's new book Who Does He Say You Are? found its way to my inbox. I read it with tears streaming down my face, her good words watering my parched spirit. I know that dear readers here will recognize that Colleen is one of my best friends and that perhaps that makes my endorsement and hearty recommendation of this book somewhat unbiased;-), but  please hear me. This is one that you will return to again and again. You will flip it open at random and trust it to speak into your dark spaces, your wounds, your loneliness. 

Still don't quite believe me? Here are just a few quotes I gathered for myself. There were so many more. I've culled this list to a fraction of what I stopped to record on my first reading.(And truthfully, I chose by eliminating the ones with which Squarespace and I fought over formatting.)

As I write this morning, as I sift through just the quotes I've chosen and pick a few for you, I find this book ministering to me anew. I got up early (actually the smoke detector awakened us at 4:30--no fire, thank God) and I took the book with me on a morning run. I carried heavy burdens into the woods with me this morning, and a restlessness that miles and miles of running can't seem to vanquish. Now, post-run, in the relative stillness of a coffee shop at rush hour, these words bring peace.

If you read one book this summer, give yourself the gift of this one.

Oh, how I want to be an Elizabeth to our world. I want to be a woman whose faith in God’s promises holds no matter how long there is no visible evidence of it—a woman who uses her voice to bring hope to the weary and to rejoice with those who rejoice. I want to proclaim God’s goodness and faithfulness steadily, with great joy, regardless of what the world around me looks like—because when it is darkest, that is when my voice is most needed.

I forget that my hope is not that things will go as I planned, but that the Lord will make himself known, in the faces of my husband and children, in the unexpected joys of family life that pop up right in the middle of our messy chaos, in the ways he provides for me and shows me his tender care in the most detailed ways.

The courage to live the call to share Jesus with others comes from a hope that gives way to the discipline of prayer. Prayer inspires a life of joyful dependence on the Lord, which allows us to see and recognize him at work in the most surprising of ways. And from a heart focused on God blossoms the thanksgiving that overflows into sharing Christ with a waiting world.

In that embrace, she takes up the same work of all the righteous women we have already seen, that of Anna and Elizabeth, and of Woman herself: Mary. This woman whose life has been lived in anything but righteousness according to Jewish Law becomes their equal, their sister. And she shares in their work of professing Jesus to all she meets, announcing the coming of a Savior. In the eyes of the Lord, nothing in her past prohibits her from taking up her place at their sides.

He doesn’t ask that we compete for holiness or that we mold ourselves into some ill-fitting definition in order to appease him. But he wants us to learn to accept the grace of being loved by him, to learn to be content in who we are in him, so that we can be confident of what he can do for us.

I bet that you, like me, have known what it is like to be the invisible one in your own community, to be so wary of the judgmental glances and the avoidance maneuvers of others that you find it easier just to steer clear altogether

No one knew why the woman in this story kept bleeding. No one knew how to help her. No one knew what to do for her. And over time, no one knew her at all. Do you find yourself in that place? Bearing a pain that no one fully understands, so that no one fully knows what to do with you? And after enough time passes, it begins to seem that no one really knows you at all. You skim the outskirts of your own community, your own family, your own life, hide from the places where people gather, and learn to accept that you will never be fully healed, fully known, or fully accepted again.

We assume that our humanity and our sin are obstacles to Jesus, when, in fact, he has come to the place where we are and waited for us just so he can blow away the lines the world has drawn in the dust, and all the lines we ourselves have drawn too, with the breath of mercy.

He wants to heal us not only from the outside shame that keeps us baking in the public glare, but from the deep, personal shame that keeps us gingerly sidestepping our real wounds while we wither within.

I bow low to kiss the dirt, sure that I have earned my fate, that I deserve to be right where I am, buried under my sin and bruised and broken open by the guilty verdict I cannot rebuff. And more often than not, the fists waiting to cast the stones that will do me in are a million better versions of myself that I have not been, jeering and scoffing and mocking me in my weakness. Yes, the most sanctimonious Pharisee I ever face is the perfect version of myself, who just loves to barge into the heart of the real me—weak, tempted, sinner that I am—and pronounce her judgments with surety: failure, guilty, dirty, tainted, worthless.

First, he forgives. And then, he speaks the words that save—the words we don’t deserve, the words we could never merit, the words that revoke our death sentence and proclaim in its place life, hope, and wild grace.

I think of the way the sacrament of confession works on my own soul, how often I start out afraid to confront my own sin and bring it into the light, forgetting that the goal is not for me to sit shamefaced with my sin but to draw it out so that my own healing can take place. I leave confession, not bowed lower because of facing my sin, but restored by God’s mercy and sent out to live my purpose once again, to serve him with joy and hope. Jesus does not ignore my sin. He looks at it with the tenderness of his mercy and draws me up from it so that I may rise in freedom

The better portion she chose was to set aside the worry and anxiety that comes from measuring our worth by comparing ourselves to those around us, and to instead gaze fully on the face of her Savior who was there in their midst, present to her and offering her a freely given, unearned stamp of approval out of love. Leaning in, she wasn’t worried about what she could offer him, but she focused on what she could learn from him.

We do not have to find a way to be something we are not in order to please Jesus. We do not have to work for his approval. We only have to keep our gaze on him, to lean in and listen from whatever position in which we find ourselves, and to know that he is near. This is the only necessary thing for us to do to find contentment in our lives.

Books to Toss in Your Kids' Beach Bags

We're headed to the beach soon. Truth be told, it's unlikely my girls will have a whole lot of time to read this go 'round, since we're going for a dance competition. But they've been summer reading right along and we have another trip to the beach in August. Here are some of our family favorites for summer reading. There is no rhyme or reason to the way they're listed here. Some are just light, happy reads. Some are much heavier, deeper. As I went through the list (during the third sitting of putting this post together, because everything takes me days to do;-), I recognized that there is a bit of a recurrent theme so appropriate right now. Several of these books emphasize seeking to understand, working to build bridges, and nurturing unlikely friendships. Kind of the ribbon running through this particular summer...

Penderwicks at Point Mouette

This isn't the first in there series and I'd always rather read them in order, but it is the first book recommended when I crowd sourced the small crowd in my family room asking, "What's a good beach book?" This is the one set at the beach if you have someone who wants to read about the beach while at the beach. 

Rosalind heads to the beach for the summer and the rest of the Penderwick sister, together with their friend Jeffrey, go to Maine. In Rosalind's absence, Skye is sister-in-charge in the charming coastal cottage. Lots of typical Penderwick scrapes and adventures in this one. If you don't know the Penderwicks yet, read The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy and Penderwicks on Gardam Street and then this one. It's only mid-July. There's plenty of summer left for it.
 

Spiderwick Chronicles

This one is included because when I was eliciting suggestions from my kids, I said "Penderwick" and Sarah immediately started lobbying for "Spiderwicks." That's one she met at the beach two years ago.

Using a handmade field guide found in the attic of an old mansion they’ve just moved into, Jared; his twin brother, Simon; and their older sister, Mallory, discover the world of faerie. This is a magical, parallel world with adventure and intrigue and the faeries are determined to keep the Grace children from telling anyone about the mysterious world.

 

Summer of the Gypsy Moths

This is a beautiful book of empathy and redemption. Stella is eleven years old, staying at her Great Aunt Louise's house on Cape Cod for the summer, in part because her mother is unreliable. Angel is a foster child Aunt Louise has taken in. When Aunt Louise suddenly dies, the girls conspire to keep it a secret so that they can stay where they are. Forced to trust one another and to depend on each other for survival, they come of age together and discover they can forge a family from an unlikely friendship.

One Crazy Summer

Karoline read this on last winter and highly recommends it. It seems particularly appropriate for this summer--a perfect conversation starter for some of the tough conversations that beg to be had in these chaotic days. "In the tumultuous summer of 1968, Delphine and her two sisters travel from Brooklyn to Oakland, Calif., to spend a month with their mother, a radical poet who sends them to the local Black Panther center for summer camp. There, they begin to learn about the fraught relationship between race and power."

Shmoop opines: Rita Williams-Garcia's 2010 novel tackles big issues like racism, government control, unfair arrests, abandonment, and responsibility. But before you bail for a lighter read, you should probably know that this book bagged a bunch of awards, including the National Book Award, Coretta Scott King Award, and the Newbery Medal of Honor when it came out (source). In other words, One Crazy Summer doesn't just dive headfirst into tricky territory; it navigates it with aplomb.

The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles

I loved this book when I was about ten. It's written by Julie Andrews--yes, that beloved Mary Poppins-Maria Von Trapp Julie. Three children and an eccentric professor locate the last living Whangdoodle--a huge mooselike creature who wants nothing more in life than a lady whangdoodle to love. It's a charming story, delightfully written. I can just hear her reading it aloud, which begs the question: Why in the world is there no author-read audio version?

 

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn

This one brings me back to the summer before my freshman year in high school when I read this book not once, not twice, but three times. Francie Nolan is one tough cookie who is growing up the crime-ridden squalor that is Brooklyn in the early 1900s. It's the story of determination and resilience and the burning passion that can be inspired in the heart of a (very young) writer by words that beg to be set free. (*Please see the content flag in the comments. appropriate for teens, according to your family's standards.)

Roll Of Thunder, Hear My Cry

I believe this one is a classic. Truly. Every family should own it and read it together. Maybe now, more than ever before in the our lifetime and the lifetime of our children, we need to be talking about books like this. From the Amazon description:

In all Mildred D. Taylor's unforgettable novels she recounts "not only the joy of growing up in a large and supportive family, but my own feelings of being faced with segregation and bigotry." Her Newbery Medal-winning Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry tells the story of one African American family, fighting to stay together and strong in the face of brutal racist attacks, illness, poverty, and betrayal in the Deep South of the 1930s. Nine-year-old Cassie Logan, growing up protected by her loving family, has never had reason to suspect that any white person could consider her inferior or wish her harm. But during the course of one devastating year when her community begins to be ripped apart by angry night riders threatening African Americans, she and her three brothers come to understand why the land they own means so much to their Papa. "Look out there, Cassie girl. All that belongs to you. You ain't never had to live on nobody's place but your own and long as I live and the family survives, you'll never have to. That's important. You may not understand that now but one day you will. Then you'll see."

The Hundred Dresses

This one is about bullies and bystanders and learning valuable lessons, hopefully before it's too late. 

My take is that bullying and "bystandering" has become ubiquitous, though much of it--most of it--is digital now. In the last twenty years, children have become emboldened by their screens. Books like this one heighten empathy and sensitivity. If only they'd read more of the bound words and fewer of the ones through which they scroll, mindlessly while letting their hearts be seared. 

From the Amazon description:

Wanda Petronski lives way up in shabby Boggins Heights, and she doesn't have any friends. Every day she wears a faded blue dress, which wouldn't be too much of a problem if she didn't tell her schoolmates that she had a hundred dresses at home--all silk, all colors, and velvet, too. This lie--albeit understandable in light of her dress-obsessed circle--precipitates peals of laughter from her peers, and she never hears the end of it. One day, after Wanda has been absent from school for a few days, the teacher receives a note from Wanda's father, a Polish immigrant: "Dear teacher: My Wanda will not come to your school any more. Jake also. Now we move away to big city. No more holler Polack. No more ask why funny name. Plenty of funny names in the big city. Yours truly, Jan Petronski."

Maddie, a girl who had stood by while Wanda was taunted about her dresses, feels sick inside: "True, she had not enjoyed listening to Peggy ask Wanda how many dresses she had in her closet, but she had said nothing.... She was a coward.... She had helped to make someone so unhappy that she had had to move away from town." Repentant, Maddie and her friend Peggy head up to Boggins Heights to see if the Petronskis are still there. When they discover the house is empty, Maddie despairs: "Nothing would ever seem good to her again, because just when she was about to enjoy something--like going for a hike with Peggy to look for bayberries or sliding down Barley Hill--she'd bump right smack into the thought that she had made Wanda Petronski move away." Ouch.

Bridge to Terabithia

So, I read this one in college. It was assigned reading for my children's literature class. And after I dried my tears, I picked up the phone and called my best friend from high school, a boy I'd not talked to in several months. A boy I swore I was "totally over." Thirty years and nine kids later, I have a super soft spot for Terabithia;-).

The book is so much better than the movie.

It's not a love story. It's a story about the power of a friendship to transform us.

I'm not one for trigger warnings, but I make an exception here. Spoiler: A child dies tragically. If you have a child (like at least one of mine), who really can't handle the intense emotion of grief in literature yet, steer clear. It's a great book, but it can wait until a little later. I wouldn't hesitate to hand it to my 13-year-old, but I'd hide it from my 7-year-old, not just because of maturity, but because of sensitivity

 

Matilda

Because of stories read aloud at the Montessori school, my little girls have been on a Roald Dahl binge. Some of those I could easily forego (Witches is on my least favorite list), but they really loved Matilda. It's "the story of an exceptionally gifted girl who outsmarts her cruel parents and the brutish school headmistress Miss Trunchbull with the help of her magical abilities and her kind teacher Miss Honey." Roald Dahl really does nail humanity's weaknesses and failure exceptionally well, bringing them to life in a books that speak to children without being childish at all.

Number the Stars

I mentioned that we listened to this one a couple of weeks ago. We're still talking about it almost daily. This is a beautiful, haunting book of the friendship of two families--one Christian and one Jewish--during the days of Germany's occupation of Denmark. The strength and bravery of two little girls--and a whole country of Danes--is breathtaking. I can't say enough good things. It's $4 right now for the Amazon Audible version. That means that for $1/hour you can all listen to it for four hours in the car while you drive to whatever summer destination you have in mind. Time so well spent. You'll be so glad you shared it together.

I've got a bunch more, but summer will be over if I keep writing and don't post soon. So, let these be your end-of-July reads and maybe I can squeeze one more post into mid-August, because, really, these are good books for any time at all. The beach just makes them a little sandy and a little water-worn, and maybe a bit more memorable. 

When You're Standing Outside the Circle

I see it happening, the unfolding of a girl’s heart towards the warmth and light of community. And then, just as the petals are in full flower, I watch what seems nearly inevitable: petals pulled back in tightly onto themselves, hardened to protect against the pelting that comes.

I am the mother of four girls. Those girls, whose ages span 12 years, are best friends to one another. They know each other inside and out. They inspire and exasperate one another. They hold each other accountable to a family standard, a biblical standard, an impossible standard. And they grant each other grace when one falls short, because truly, we all fall short. They are inextricably bound. By God’s grace, they have each other. Come what may, in this group, they are in. In this group, they are promised a forever bond. In this group, they genuinely do want the best for one another.

That’s a good thing, because friendship beyond the walls of our home has for them what it has had for every girl who has gone before them. Girls can be mean. Girls can hurl stones with an accuracy that takes one’s breath away. Girls can break one another’s hearts. Whether 9 or 19, it hurts to be the one who feels like she is sitting on the outside. Yet, every woman I know nods in recognition when they see it happen to their daughters. The outside. Been there, done that.

Even though it hurts to watch the sadness that comes with being on the outside, I pray that the time they spend there makes them better at drawing the new circles, better at defining what the inside will look like as they grow. I pray for them friends who fortify the circle from within with the full armor of God. So, as the circles are redrawn, we spend lots of time talking about how to be a good friend, how to grow into being what God desires of a woman in community.

My sweet girls, remember this: the time outside that hurts so much is time He will use if you let Him. God brings great good out of betrayals. Joseph didn’t stay lost and forgotten at the bottom of the well. He rose out of the depths and let himself be used to save a nation. Jesus allowed himself to be betrayed by a friend so that you will never truly stand alone on the outside. He’s there with you.

Truth is, dear ones, you cannot change another human being. You cannot craft someone into a faithful friend. Unless, of course, that someone is you. In the hurt of betrayal of being cast out, resolve only one thing: that you will be a better friend to someone else because you know the ache you’re feeling now.

Be a friend who is the safe place for a girl to unburden her heart. Comfort and console, but never be afraid to speak the truth in love, to ask her to open wide her eyes and to see for herself that she is created in the image of God. Be compassionate and kind and unwavering in your belief in her good.

As you sit there feeling left out, let the feeling settle deep into your bones. Don’t forget the way it hurts. Now, resolve today to be the girl who only speaks life. Forget about defending yourself against whatever is twisting in the wind. It serves no purpose to shout into the bitter storm. Lift your chin and only speak words that make souls better, that bring them closer to God. Remember how you sat there in the studio, quite literally outside the circle, and their whispers burned your heart and stung your eyes? Don’t ever be the girl that whispers. Speak aloud and only speak life.

Don’t give up on community, my girls. Don’t let the growing pains that come with the human experience make you bitter. Let them make you better. The friends of tomorrow will be blessed by the pain of today.