(in)spired to Encourage

 This week I helped my daughter say her first big goodbye to a good friend who'd become more like a sister than anything.  Her family lived at the end of our street, and they moved yesterday.  Her friend's mom has become a good friend of mine, and over the course of the girls' friendship, she's welcomed my whole family into her home for dinners and parties and impromptu back yard gatherings. Our husbands have become friends. She has shown up in my driveway at 7:30 in the morning every school morning for months to take my oldest to school, so my toddler can sleep in. Friends like this don't come along every day.  She knows how to encourage.

I've been given the opportunity to review a product for Dayspring, and I'm so excited to know their theme during the month of June is encouragement.  As a woman, my sister-friends who fill up all the little spaces in my heart with their encouragement and laughter are a gift to me every day.  I'm really looking forward to sharing my Sassy & Sophisticated cards.  Some of the words make me laugh out loud while some are so tender.

My friends are amazing.  They are real.  They let me into their lives, and I know I can let them into mine - into my three-kids-tearing-around the house evenings, my yes-it's-almost-lunch-and-I'm-still-in-my-jammies door answering mornings, my I'll-step-out-of-the-minivan-so-I-can-hear-you-over-the-Veggie Tales DVD-and-kids-talking chats on the cell phone mid-afternoon.  The real places.  The places where our lives intersect.  The shopping trips with toddlers in tow, wondering what Stacy and Clinton would say about the "trousers." The whispered prayer requests from broken hearts letting go of adoption dreams again and again.  The steady encouragement to keep praying about whatever it is in life we're discussing.  The Word shared over coffee and the noise of preschoolers tearing the house apart, but we don't care because we love our mama-time.  The laughing till we think we're going to pee our pants.  It's all that real stuff. It's the core of friendship, and it's like a breath for our souls as women.

So this month, I'm going to be intentional about showing some friends my appreciation for them.  Thank you, Dayspring, for all the many ways you give us ways to celebrate our friendships and our faith!

"A sweet friendship refreshes the soul." Proverbs 27:9

(The opinions expressed are my own, and I have not received payment for the product review.)