God has been putting the power of words on my heart lately. We have already talked about the power of words in our marriage and the power of words with our children. Today we are talking about the power of words in our friendships. I am sure we can all share stories of where we encouraged others and also times when our mouths seemed to be falling downstairs taking out friendships left and right. I know I struggled with friendships a lot over the years.
During my elementary to high school days, I changed school 9 times. 9 times in 13 years. I had very little experience in having long-term friendships, especially when it comes to conflict resolution. I was barely around long enough to make friends, much less experience friendships that survived the drama that typically happens at school. My approach to conflict resolution (since I had little experience with it) was to cut my friend off. We weren’t friends anymore. As soon as they wronged me, they were out. And I didn’t just do this as a child. I did this as an adult. What I wasn’t acknowledging at the time is that no one is perfect. Not one person. Especially not me.
Eventually, friends hurt each other, either accidentally or maybe even on purpose. So it wasn’t a matter of how I would respond IF my friends hurt me, it was how I would respond WHEN they did. I was pretty lonely. I didn’t have close friends. I was all about people extending grace to me, but I wasn’t extending grace to others. I finally grew up and started realizing we don’t give up on our friends when times get tough. We work through it together and value our friendship over needing to be right. I began doing this while also setting healthy boundaries with people around me (I had never been really good at that- so cutting people out was like a defense mechanism). I created various levels of friendship in my mind to help me set appropriate boundaries. It has worked wonders for me. If you want to read more about that you can do that here. Since that time I have developed wonderful, long-lasting friendships with women. I have a very tight community now. There are times when difficult conversations have to happen with your friends and this is what this post is about. The power of words with our friends. I have had many many many opportunities to learn about how my words affect my friendships, but a few times stand out in particular.
First, let me say that my real problem was that I was terrible at conflict resolution. In fact, I just avoided conflict altogether. After multiple failed attempts at resolving conflict, I knew I needed help. So I sought counsel, turned to Scripture, and studied all kinds of strategies. Here is what I have learned. Maybe it can keep you from experiencing some deep hurts or causing deep hurts in friendships.
1.) Keep people’s stories, situations, and secrets to yourself. If you are privileged to know private things about people, or even public for that matter, don’t dishonor your friends by sharing that with others. It’s not yours to share. When a woman asks me about another lady, I always say, “Oh, you will have to ask her. That is not my story to share. She can probably tell it better than me since it is her story. I don’t want to dishonor her by telling it wrong.” Don’t gossip about friends. It just adds insult to injury, And I say friends, but you shouldn’t gossip about anyone ever. Even if it is your worst enemy. I have experienced the hurt that comes from being gossiped about.
I was having a really bad day; it was just a stormy season. We’ve all had one of those, right? I was feeling so low and what happened? This woman, who had always treated me unkindly walked into the same establishment where I was. She thought she saw me doing something wrong, which I wasn’t. This lady is a professing Christ follower. Instead of coming over to me and checking on me, she went out and immediately told many of our mutual friends things that were untrue based on what she thought she saw. So here I am in a very stormy season having to put out fires caused by someone who cared more about destroying my character and less about lifting up another sister in Christ. It was awful. Salt in the wounds for sure. It reminded me of Job’s friends from the Bible. They were not very adept at reading the room. In Job’s distress, they offered up criticism and reprimands instead of comfort. When Job needed someone to be there for him, they just made matters worse. Kind of like the woman I knew. Don’t be that kind of lady. If you even THINK your sister in Christ is walking in sin, the answer is not to tear down her reputation by spreading it all over town. This brings me to my next point.
2.) Speak truth in love. IN LOVE. Not in condemnation. Not in Judgment. Not in finger-pointing. Love. Check your motives before you speak truth to someone. Why are you confronting them? If it is not because you love them and you want to see them walking according to the Word of God, if it is out of pridefulness, then you might need to pause.
There are two situations that I want to share with you in which I had to confront women with the truth in love. I do not love having these conversations, but sometimes they are necessary. And when God calls you to have the conversations, you must be obedient.
The first was when one of my closest friends was teaching false doctrine to people in our church via small groups. She was a newer Christian and over time she revealed herself to be someone who did not care about knowing, understanding, or being obedient to Scripture. She was more concerned about the acceptance of the world instead of the acceptance of Christ. She didn’t want to hurt people’s feelings and so she promoted ideology that the Bible was clearly against. She did this in order to please people, to have friends, to be accepted. I took her aside and lovingly told her that she was in a position of authority and would be held accountable to God for what she taught to others. I told her that I loved her and that I didn’t want her to get into trouble for teaching false doctrine. I will honestly tell you that it was probably one of the hardest conversations I have ever had. I knew I was taking a risk. I knew my friend might reject me and cut me off forever (the way I used to do to people), but I loved her too much to be quiet. So I approached her in love. It is so important to approach people in love and not from a place of judgment and condemnation. And it is also important that you actually have the type of relationship in which you can speak into their life. If you are a
mere acquaintance you will probably be shut down and rejected. However, even when you are good friends, you still may not be received well. My friend did not want to hear me. She had her own agenda and truly did not care about the Word. So she cut me out of her life for good. I wish she knew how hard that it was for me to talk to her and risk our friendship. But in the end, I had to intervene on behalf of those who were under her instruction, especially since they were younger minds. Unfortunately, she ended up leaving the church. I pray one day she returns with a sincere love for Jesus and the Bible, and I can welcome her with open arms. This wasn’t the ideal situation, but I know God is over all. I was obedient to what He called me to do and that is enough. When you confront someone who does have a sincere love for the Lord, hopefully, things will go better. They did for me. This brings me to my second story.
It was when a friend of mine was hurt by the church and ended up leaving. Out of her hurt,
she was telling her story to anyone who would listen. Haven’t we all been there? When things feel so unjust that you just have to talk about it? But remember that in those times, God is still in control. What ended up happening was that my friend was starting to get a bad reputation. For gossiping. I knew that my friend would be devastated by that because she was an incredible woman of God and had always been described as such. So I gently went to my friend and encouraged her to just talk to me or one of her other friends because people who she thought were safe, were really not. They were spreading everything she was saying. Again, it was so hard to have that conversation, but God was calling me to have it. The burden became so great that I had stress all over my body until I finally had the conversation with her. She did distance herself for a time, but since she was a woman of God, guess what happened? She came back around after God brought her through the storm and we have reconnected and are wonderful friends. As hard as it is to speak hard things it is just as hard or maybe even harder to hear hard things because the hearer is usually carrying some hurt with them. Just remember that when you are holding your friend accountable.
Make sure to do it with the right heart and motives and with love. If I had done it any other way I would have lost my friend forever
So to recap, our words have power in our friendships. We have the power to build friendships and help women walk in their purpose, to encourage them to chase after Jesus, or alienate our friends or ourselves and miss out on the blessings of strong friendships with godly women.
Remember
1.) Tell your story and no one else’s (don’t gossip)2.) Speak the truth in love (don’t pour salt in their wounds)3.) Be a grace giver and overlook offenses (don’t point out someone else’s shortcoming and ignore your own.)
If you do these things, you will be surrounded by rich friendships. Go and speak life and love, using your words to build up the kingdom of God, not tear it down.
<3 Heather
