like a Pride of lions (without the pride)

Five years ago I wrote this thing, so specifically made toward a thing that felt like it needed a healthy response. I spoke from a very recent place of healing and connection I had experienced. And now, five years later, I’m digging out the words that resonate, far beyond the one story. This is all of our stories. This is what women need to know- about themselves first. And then others. Read at your own risk. It might shake some very well and carefully built walls. But that’s the good news- it only gets better from there. There’s more than we’ve seen yet. We all were made for more.

The anthem that has been building in my soul is this…There isn’t any fear in love.

This is about first self love and secondly, sisterhood. I heard myself say a few times time, without any intended malice, “I don’t LOVE her.”

Though I thought it was discerning and wise, as in I liked you, I cherry picked what I consumed, and I didn’t fawn over you the way some people did, maybe it was something deeper. I didn’t LOVE you, the way we’re supposed to LOVE one another.
Because I wasn’t giving myself full permission to be me, I held you at an arms length.

In not trusting myself to be me or you to be you, I projected my own fears and insecurities onto you, even slightly.
I didn’t allow any real room for either of our mistakes, actual or feared.

That’s not what sisterhood was meant for.

I should know, I just had some major healing in one of my sister relationships after 23 years this week. Twenty three years!! We were high school friends and our parents got married at the beginning of our senior year after a quick courtship. A friend said we were like an after school special. Now one of us just needed an eating disorder.

Well we didn’t have that, but we had buckets and buckets of polite resentment, underlying uncertainties, and unwanted competition.
So there’s all of that.

We just miraculously reconciled (in no small part on my end because of the deep work I was doing last week.) In that moment of finally opening up, I realized that I had rejected her emotionally all of those years ago when our parents got married, because of her big emotions and because she “didn’t handle it as well” as I did. I thought I was protecting myself from injury or trouble. I truly didn’t realize I was creating it. For both of us.

I realized that my need to stay safe, follow the rules, check the boxes, and stay in line, like a nice, good girl, led me play both small and safe, and to reject others emotionally when they didn’t fit the little boxes.

I’m a kind and loving person; I thought I was being smart and safe and doing the best job that I could. I couldn’t see all of the ways my “niceness” was motivated by fear.

I didn’t even usually realize it. But here I was, doing it again to you. And that is not right. We are not supposed to throw one another to the wolves because we’re scared that we will become like them or wind up in the same position.

We are are not supposed to reject one another in times of need because we’re afraid of their wounds or scars. Maybe that’s what wolves do. But maybe we aren’t supposed to be wolves.

We are a pack of, well…gosh darn lionesses.

They can live in a peace together without shame or fear or judging (This thought just comes to me as I write. I go research a little about lionesses in a pride – “no rank or hierachy among females”. WOW and YES!!)

We have been pitted against one another as women for far too long. Rejecting each other, judging, taking sides, FEARING.
But that’s not what we were meant to do.

We’ve been played a massive lie that we all can’t be at the top. But, oh, maybe we can.

Maybe that’s just a lie that darkness has sold us, that keeps us all stuck and infighting and scared.

Maybe we CAN allow one another space to heal as well as space to fly. Maybe we don’t need to be so afraid of one another anymore.
So, let me say humbly, I’m sorry. I wasn’t made to be smart and safe and try my best —check, check, check. I was made to be extraordinary.

And so were you.

I’m deciding not to be afraid of that anymore.

Let me be one who gives you the space for whatever it is you need.
Your success or failure has nothing to do with me. But my rejection or acceptance of you does.
It has everything to do with me.
So, just like you first shouted encouragement in my ear,​​​​​​​ telling me that I was “made for more”.
Maybe now if you read this,​​​​​​​ I can be that for you. (I never doubted I could add to your life if I had a chance. I just needed a lot more love. It was always available to me, I’m just opening up more.)
Maybe now I can whisper in your ear encouragement and acceptance.
Even if I don’t understand your decision.
Why ‘even if‘?
Because Love loves without condition.
Without condition, thought or fear for itself. Because your success or failure have nothing to do with mine.
Because you need and deserve support from your sisterhood, no matter what we feel. I want to love you the way we’re supposed to truly love our sisters.
You don’t have to be a lone wolf, leading the pack, fearing failure or being rejected for your failings.
My stance might be tested, I’m not infallible.
But I’m tired of loving less because I’m afraid of getting the answers wrong, like this is some kind of test.
That’s not the Love of a Savior that I know, that I am learning all over again.
So let’s learn together.
How to have a Pride without pride, competition, or fear of rejection.
Let’s love like Jesus loved.
Wildly, with abandon, and not withholding because of any of our shortcomings.
That’s the kind of world Jesus made possible when he came here.
And that’s the kind of LOVE that the world needs now. Even though we might be heroes for each other, we were never meant to be a savior. Jesus is.
God doesn’t ask us to be perfect, just to love. To know Him. That should all be our aim.
That lioness kind of love.