Do You Have A Fierce Five?
When my Dad died two summers ago, one of my best friends had been walking through my journey with me. She’s listened, she cared, she asked, she was invested. I got to spend most of the summer with him in Michigan but eventually had to return with my family back to California. While I was back in California, he went home to be with Jesus. I got the text while I was out with two of my kids. I drove them home and told our family and then went in my bedroom to cry. I texted her and she never texted back, she just got in her car and drove over and walked into my room and sat with me. I am so grateful for a friend like that. She is one of my fierce five. I think everyone should have five fierce friends or more to do life with. Friendship sometimes gets pushed aside on the priority list, but today we are going to talk about why the faith habit of the Fierce Five is something you need.
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We love our friends. We need our friends. We are so thankful for them! Do you ever wish you could spend more time with them? Sometimes life just gets busy and it seems like we mostly catch up with other via text or IG. Life has so many demands that by the time we go all in with our work and our families, it can feel like there is not much left over for friends.
But friendship is one of God’s greatest gifts to us. It is a connecting of two souls that share a bond. Often it is hard to predict or even expect when a friendship will all of the sudden form. I have a Friendship Blessing Guide to share with you today that has scripture about friends, a prayer to pray for your friends, some hilarious quotes, and 18 GirlsNightOut ideas. You could pick one a month and have an entire year of friendship fun all planned out for you! Head on over to LisaToney.com/GirlsNightOut and get your free Friendship Blessing Guide.
One of my dearest friends I met in college. I entered college after my childhood best friend of ten years started dating my boyfriend behind my back. I was so hurt. Betrayal is such a difficult emotion to work through. I found a new group of friends to hang out with at the end of high school, but I was very hesitant to get close again. I didn’t want to get hurt again. God was so gracious in putting a woman on my floor who was soon to become a soul sister. We had the same class schedule on Monday morning and so we started walking to class together. She was a brilliant hilarious sarcastic woman of deep faith. I just loved everything about her and soon that mystical but powerful bond of friendship formed and grew each year. These days, we live in different states, but we see each other once a year and can just pick up where we left off. It is always such a soul blessing cup filling eagerly awaited enjoyable day that I get to see her. I always leave wishing we could spend more time together.
Do you have a soul sister or two? Those rare humans God put on this earth that just get you in a way that others do not. A connection that allows you to both belly laugh and weep tears of compassion all within the span of a few minutes? Proverbs 27:9 says that A sweet friendship refreshes the soul. Isn’t that the truth? God gives us friends for fun and to remind us that we are valued, supported, and understood.
Friends come and go like the waves of the ocean. But the true ones stay, like an octopus on your face. Right there. Committed. In it with you. Good, bad, and ugly. They know that when the scale is screaming a number at you that you don’t like that it is because you forgot about the really heavy socks that you were wearing. They know where the bodies are burried and will get you out of jail - unless they are in the cell next to you.
Friendship, truly one of God’s greatest gifts. Proverbs 17:17 One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Those are the kind of friends that we are going for, ones that are reliable, loyal, and point you to Jesus.
I want to encourage you to develop a circle of five fierce friends that will stick to you closer than a brother. Your Fierce Five. These women will support you and provide for you in ways that your husband or boyfriend cannot. It is great to friends or even besties with your spouse. But your spouse is not the same a girlfriend. And if you are married to a difficult man or in a season of relationship turmoil, having good girlfriends can not only keep you sane, but remind you that you are loved, valued, cherished, and worth knowing. If you are in a season of challenging parenthood, friends remind you that you are not your child’s choices. They also know when to grab you for a quick get-away to decompress. If you are in a season with little’s at home - then having some friends to meet at the park or text survival strategies is essential! Friends that can pray for you not only encourage your heart but encourage your soul as well.
Shared experiences create bonds and great memories. This is why it is so important to get together with friends and not neglect this important relational part of your life. I have a couple of dear friends that I was set up on a friend date. Have you ever had that happen. Someone I knew said, you really should meet this person, you are cut from the same cloth. I actually love this when this happens, because the two times I have had this happen and we got together, they were so right. We completely connected and two of these women I count among my dearest friends today.
Having friends helps protect us from loneliness. That doen’t mean that we can’t or don’t enjoy our alone time. But being intentional with friendships helps us feel connected, gives us shared experiences, and allows us to have support and intimacy with other humans.
Friends also help us de-stress. They allow us to blow off some steam, support us through difficult life moments, and often can get us laughing like no one else can. That is a valuable and important relational aspect of life that we need to nurture.
Friends give us a sense of belonging and being known. Friend see us. They know us. They love us. That is grounding for us. It gives us a sense of security, an anchor that allows us to develop and grow in new ways but know that our friends value us for who we are not what we do.
So why do I say you need to have five fierce friends? I actually cross-applied some of the research that Kara Powell has done with Sticky Faith about how important it is for teens to have five adults in their life to build friendships with them and nurture their faith. This statistically increases their changes of growing into adults that have a strong faith and are invested in the church. I love this research and I thought about how this applies to my life as well. At any given time I want to have five women that I trust implicitly that I can share anything with and go to for advice, encouragement, and support.
One of my goals is to try to nurture one really good new friendship each year. I really ask the Lord to lead me to a new person that I can be intentional about investing in. If you don’t feel like you have many friends, this is how you start. You start with prayer. You ask the Lord to grow you in this way, to bring people into your life that you can be friends with. Then you invest. You make the time to get to know each other. You BE the kind of friend that you want to have. Honestly, when you find someone that you want to be friends with, this really isn’t work, if anything it is just a balancing game because you don’t want to look like a stalker. But friendships just take time. That is why our friends that we have had for many years have a sweetness about them, it is layers of life that have been built and shared for so long.
Friendship investment is a Faith Habit. It means even when we are busy we still make our friends a priority. It also means that we need to be discerning about our friends. Are you spending time with people who make you a better person? Are you investing in people that are good for you and your family? I Corinthians 15:33 says “Bad company corrupts good character.” And it is true, isn’t it? Boundaries around your life and family are important. This includes friendships. Spend more time with the people that point you to Jesus and help you build the kind of life you want to have. Spend less time with people who derail you from your faith and poison your life.
When you start to find your Fierce Five, hold on to them. Bless them. Pray for them and have fun with them. In fact, I want to give you something special today to do just that. I have a Friendship Blessing Guide that I would love for you to have. This free guide has some scriptures about friendship, a prayer to pray over your friends and 18 ideas for Girls Night Out. Once you have this guide, you can text some friends and put some dates on the calendar to invest in those friendships. You can get this at LisaToney.com/girlsnightout.
Let me know in the comments below who some of your Fierce Five are and why you love them. What are some Girls Night Out or Girls Day Out ideas that you do with your friends? Share those ideas below, I’d love to hear them and share them with our Faith Habits community.
Alrighty friends, thank you so much for joining me today. What a blessing it is to spend some time with you each week as we champion good Faith Habits in our lives to find more success in life - God’s way. Blessings upon your week and upon your friendships! See you next week!
LisaToney.com/Girlsnightout
