Why I don’t want to write about sisterhood

 

Warning – somewhat pitiful post …

 

Sisterhood…friendship.

Suddenly my dashboard was full of encouraging, lovely stories of friendship and sisterhood. And I’m thinking to myself – this is obviously something all other Christian ladies do. And it sounds amazing.

Then I found an invitation to write about it. Well, I don’t want to.

If I went back ten years, I could write about the lovely Christian friends I had when my boys were little. We went to each other’s houses, shared meals, prayed together. And now, writing about this is bringing back memories of all those good times. The lovely woman who befriended me when I recommitted my life to Christ, the one who started a coffee group for new stay at home mums, the one who invited us to Sunday lunch, minded my baby while I worked at the church playgroup.

Then I moved towns. I started work. I joined a church where people just turned up Sunday. And somewhere along the line I decided I didn’t ‘do’ friends anymore. So I didn’t. And actually, I kind of took pride in it. Told myself I was avoiding being let down. Because I had been… let down. Also put upon, taken advantage of, used.  To borrow Alecia's words 'I had relegated myself to a party of one'.

I still did my service, my volunteering,  helped. Just avoided the friend bit.

But just recently I’ve started to think that I might be wrong.

So, I’m reading all those stories of sisterhood and companionship and remembering how good it felt when I was asked out to coffee, round to someone’s house to talk, what a blessing those women gave me. It’s not so easy without the babies, and I’m still afraid of the hurt, but this is the year when I want to be intentional about how I use my time, so I’m going to try for a bit of sisterhood.