“A joyful heart makes a cheerful face, But when the heart is sad, the spirit is broken.”                 ~ Proverbs 15:13 (NAS)  

In a women’s world, it can be challenging to meet the standards!

What do I mean?

We have so many standards that have been erected in our “world of women.”  Women vary like the stars in the sky.  We all twinkle in a different manner.  I am not sure where standards get set among us, but some how we have a un-penetrable code, so complex that it seems even we women cannot crack it.

To get along with one woman we must be like this.  However, to be embraced by the women next to her… we need to be like that!  I often feel like women need to have a schizophrenic personality order to be accepted with “all” women.

… It seems not so with men?

It seems men have this unspoken code that it is acceptable, even admirably cool to just be themselves.  Rarely, do I see a man adjusting his personality to fit in.  However, on the flip side… seldom, do I see a woman not adjusting herself in the women’s world of interpersonal communications!

What a complex world.

Sometimes, I see a woman who comes along with the simple freedom to just be herself!  I am always intrigued how she arrived there.  Did she ever struggle with this dueling dynamic, or did it take lessons of rejection for her to finally rest in her uniqueness?  Either way… I admire her confidence and style!

Over the years I have witnessed countless women stranded on the uneven streets of women friendships…

Longing to fit in…  Hurt and despondent…  Lonely…… Desperate for inclusion, yet delirious from exclusion! 

I’ve witnessed women who have deliberately changed ways about themselves just to be included in a circle of friendship.  But, I have also witnessed women who have been excluded from those same circles because they have refused to conform to a new personality.

They refused to be stamped with a group’s seal of approval.

I have watched in perplexity as to why this dynamic repeats itself time and time again?  It’s like a rewind to junior high that has morphed into circles of grown mature women.  What gives?

It can be easy for many (including myself) to be seen at times as walking around with a hard shelled candy coating of un-penetrable defenses, which wrap around our lives protecting ourselves from those of our own breed called “woman!”

Those who have peeled back their layer of candy coating appear to be the freest!  However, I have not figured out yet, if they are the most liked?

Maybe that’s the key!

We must get to a place in life that it doesn’t matter to us if we’re liked.  It doesn’t matter if the crowd accepts us.  It doesn’t matter if those who have written the code have stamped a letter of acceptance upon our hard candy shell coating to allow us to be associated with their own uniformed crowd.

Our breed, which is naturally and instinctually called to be nurtures.  Our breed, which so beautifully demonstrates an innate ability to wrap arms around little beings to fill them and mold them in the warmth of love.  This breed which by Gods design is to be filled with compassion and care.  This breed to which we women belong, has allowed an imposter to penetrate our walls…

Our breed, has allowed another “C” to sneak in…  The “C” of Comparison!

How is it that the very ones that God has equipped with such beautiful compassion and care to fill others lives, are the same ones who measure out comparison in such a degree that it has become a measuring rod as to who deserves this love and care?

The beauty of our breed “is” our compassion and care!

The beauty of our breed “is” that we love others to fill their lives, not that we withhold love to diminish it!

The beauty of our breed “is” that we are unified in a category of our own.  Different as different can be, yet unified under the compassionate, caring category called “Woman!”

When we allow our breed to live according to God’s ordained ways, we will be the kind of woman God has equipped and has intended us to be!

When we kick out that horrible impostor of comparison and embrace “All” women of our breed as acceptable … we allow each of us to twinkle in our own unique way and to learn from the other “man breed” what is meant by… “It is admirably cool to be different!” 

Matter of fact, when we do this…

We embrace difference!   

We allow differences! 

We, once again admire difference as that which makes us so uniquely diverse that we, the “breed of woman” can fulfill our God given ability to…

Fill OTHERS lives!  

… And in doing so, we help to shape and mold each other’s lives with a “C” shaped edge of Care and Compassion!  Carving out the discriminating “c” which stands for “comparison”  and trading it instead for the “C” which Cultivates our Circles of friendships so they will no longer remain small and exclusive, but rather large and inclusive having a positive influence on ALL!

  

“Then Jesus answered and said: “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a certain priest came down that road. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion. So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.’ So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?”  ~ Luke 10:30-35  (NKJV) 

 

“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” ~ Colossians 3:12 (NIV)

 

“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” ~ Galatians 6:2 (NKJV)

 

“Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous;” ~  1 Peter 3:8 (NKJV)

 

“Then the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying,  “Thus says the Lord of hosts:    ‘Execute true justice, Show mercy and compassion  Everyone to his brother.  Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless,The alien or the poor.  Let none of you plan evil in his heart Against his brother.’” ~ Zechariah 7:8-10 (NKJV)

 

“So you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him. For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything.” ~  2 Corinthians 2:7-9 (ESV)

 

“But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children.”           ~ 1 Thessalonians 2:7 (ESV)

 

“You are my friends if you do what I command.” ~John 15:14 (NLT)