SOUL SISTERS

Thank You, Heavenly Father, for the precious gift of soul sisters. 

You knew exactly how they would enrich my life and walk with you. You knew they would encourage and strengthen me by their living examples of love without demands or expectations. You knew they would openly share joys and hurts, failures and faults, hopes and dreams. You knew they would gently hold in confidence each other’s secrets whispered from the depth of aching hearts. And You drew us – no, You knit us together into Soul Sisters who have laughed, prayed, played and cried together for sixteen  years.

We have shared

     JOYS – births of children and grandchildren, graduations, weddings, anniversaries, accomplishments; 

     SORROWS – death and loss, fear, cancer, heartache, broken relationships, job stress, illness, surgeries;

     and a myriad of LIFE CHANGES. 

Holding each other up to You in prayer, we knew You cared even more than we did.

So I thank You, Father, for my ladies group – those dear women you put into my life when I was a stranger to Kansas and started teaching the evening Bible Study. Those women I first met at Bible study, I now count as precious sisters and dearest of friends.

Thank You for the hours spent meeting together monthly – first at Bible study, then for lunches, then in each other’s homes where we talked so long, regularly ushering in the midnight hour. Our husbands, mystified by how we find so much to talk about month after month, learned not to wait up for us because we never got home before the wee hours of the morning. When meeting at restaurants we linger outside long after the doors close for the night, reminiscent of those first long-ago meetings when we stood talking for hours in the church parking lot.  For every one of those times together I am grateful.

The words of Phil 1:3 apply to these dear friends, “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you…”   I am thankful for the way each one welcomed me into her life, thus enriching mine. And so, this week when I bid my friends "Good night" (good morning, actually) and closed my front door,  I went to bed with a heart overflowing with gratitude that God created us with a longing for friendship and then fulfilled that longing with such special people, my Soul Sisters.  

Purple flowers

She brought them as table decorations for a dinner and they were lovely.  I was new to Kansas and unfamiliar with the purple flower. She said they grew in her garden and if I wanted some she could give them to me, as she had plenty.

  Most of the plants in my garden came from other people’s gardens.

 I carried the Hostas
and lilies back from my brother’s garden in Pennsylvania

and they’ve thrived in my Kansas garden.

The Iris and Peonies I dug up from Mother’s garden in Pennsylvania remind me

 how much she loved flowers.

I told my friend that I would love to add her flowers to my garden. She warned me that they were very hardy. “Plant them where nothing else is growing,” she said, “Because they will spread and take over.” I said I would plant just a few, and I found them a space in my garden.

She was RIGHT! The purple flowers were pretty in the front garden, but each year there were MORE of them. They spread and took over, refusing to stay confined to their neat little corner of the garden. I pulled out the errant ones, to no avail. No matter how many I ripped out of the ground, new leaves poked up through the dirt - MASSES of them in ever-increasing number! And they TOOK OVER, squeezing out anything else bold enough to fight for space in the garden.  In early spring when they first bloom, they were beautiful. But for most of the summer my garden looked unkempt and over-run with green weeds.

Drastic Measures were required.  This year I am taking no chances!  My strategy is to pull them out by the roots, spray weed killer, and apply an extra thick blanket of mulch to smother any late hangers-on. Time will tell if my efforts pay off.

Maybe sin is a little like those purple flowers. Attractive at first, but over time relentlessly invading other areas of life – thoughts – attitudes – behavior, until righteous living is crowded out by unruly sinful habits. 

Those times call for Drastic Measures!

1. Saying the same thing about sin that God says, that’s CONFESSION 

2. Turning away from the sinful behavior and turning toward God, that’s REPENTANCE.

3.  Asking God for help to overcome the habit, that’s DEPENDENCE.

4.  Trusting in the power of God to enable changed behavior, that’s FAITH.

5. Following through on what God says to do, that’s OBEDIENCE.

CONFESSION.  REPENTANCE.  DEPENDENCE.  FAITH.  OBEDIENCE.  If applied liberally and regularly this five point strategy will help root out sins before they become deeply imbedded in the garden of our souls.

And the purple flowers?  I’ll keep you posted.