Time for Friends?

Good afternoon, my women friends! Today’s group hosted at Julie’s house (Thank you, Julie!) was small and very enjoyable though we missed others of you! Thank you to Shawna and Michelle for their great emails regarding the question of respecting our husbands. Since it was just Julie, Erin and me at today’s group, we decided to hold off on the respect question since it seems like it’s such a hot topic. I’m sure many of you have some great thoughts and questions to contribute to the matter so we’ll take it up again in the week(s) to come. Thanks for telling us about that website, Shawna – we’ll definitely have to check it out!

Julie had a couple of good “conversational” questions for today such as “Who in your life has been the most inspiring to you within the last year?” and “What has been your best spiritual experience recently?” We also happened to talk about the value of nutritional food in our lives and how it affects our behaviors, health, etc. It was interesting and such a great reminder to me to start taking better care of myself and my family’s health! We also read a couple of excerpts from a book called I Know Just What You Mean written by two lifelong women friends.

“Women have wider lives now. And busier lives. Friendship still
has to be squeezed into a schedule that puts family and work first, and in the
time crunch of modern life, friendship can be the first thing women lose.
In the movie, One Fine Day, Michelle Pfeiffer plays the very model of a
stressed-out single mom with a schedule so tightly wrapped that when George
Clooney asks her about friends, she snaps: “I don’t have time for
friends.” Time for friends? Women can’t help but see friendship as
the “treat” they can allow themselves only after the business of the day is done
– if it’s done. And yet…when we ask women the best part of the workday,
many say it is lunchtime, which gives them the excuse to “grab a bite” with a
friend at work, to sit down and talk. Young mothers set up play dates for
their infants and toddlers that are, in fact, mom dates. Women pencil each
other in around work and kids and men and doctor appointments and trips to the
supermarket. In spite of all the time pressure, women go to great lengths
to make new friends and keep old ones. The need for connection with other
women, to live lives in relationships, is so great and the pleasure of these
connections is so real, that women make remarkable efforts to counter the
centrifugal forces of our society.”

The big question for our next scheduled meeting is do we meet next week on Friday, April 14th? I know next week is Good Friday so I’m not sure if anyone has plans that would conflict with our meeting. Please email me a.s.a.p. and let me know your thoughts. Also we need a hostess for our next meeting – does anyone want to volunteer their home? It would be nice to know our group location set for a couple of weeks ahead of time just to make it easier on everyone as far as getting directions and knowing where we’re headed for the next week. So if you know that you could host next week or the week after, please email me. Also let me know your ideas on a name for our group, otherwise we’ll have to brainstorm at our next get-together!

We’re looking forward to seeing some new faces in the next couple of weeks and expanding our “community” of women friends. I know that God has special plans for us as a group, and I just know that each one of you will in some way inspire me in the coming year. May we continually “counter the centrifugal forces of our society” to make real connections with each other!! J

Love,
Crystal