This Is How I Roll

As a visual learner I become increasingly aware of the truth that what I put in my eyes becomes a part of what I feel in my heart and think in my head. I’m thinking specifically of a show I used to LOVE.  It was an HBO show called Entourage.  If there is a healthy version of addiction I had it with this show.  I didn’t ignore the things or people in my life, but I could sit for hours and absorb all On Demand had to offer. The show is about an actor in Hollywood who is living the life everyone who thinks they want to be famous dreams. It’s basically the story of one successful actor surrounded by his best friends who all live off of his success.

The show is pretty and flashy and inviting.  It holds all of the appeal of an US or People magazine.  Insight into a life we imagine is full of fun and freedom and all the great stuff life has to offer. I knew as I watched the shinny images and absorbed its tempting ideas it was pouring into my brain lies of what actually satisfies.  I mean I want to have a job I love and get paid an absurd amount of money to do and have my friends and family with me all of the time.  Then I’ll be satisfied right?

So even though I knew this show was not brining me closer to God, I watched it.  And eventually I started to think about why.  And what God revealed to me was sad and sobering.

Growing up in the ‘70’s I was taken to more than one women’s lib rally.  I was told that I could do anything a man could do and that I needed to be strong and independent and fully capable of providing a life for myself.  At some point in this ‘movement’ the right idea that a woman and a man with the same qualifications should be paid the same amount of money, took a dark turn and satan was successful in sending the message of the original sin, again, that a woman wants to be, not who God says she is as daughter, but a man, in headship and control of life.

So if women are now to be men then the things that a woman ‘is’ become difficult and distasteful.  Things like being emotional and needy and meek.  Words like obey and submit become curse words and are cut out of marriage vows.  And now, I as a young girl see myself and other women in the light of lies that tells me that what I am is wrong and the others are too much trouble.  And this leaves me living a life despising my identity as feminine and refusing any nurturing relationships with other women.

I am but one, imagine thousands of us with this imprint.  And what you have is a new version of an old lie that women are primarily jealous and catty, almost to the point of being against one another.  And this iswhat God showed me.  That I love Entourage because those men had something I longed for, deep, intimate

relationships with people of the same sex.  The ones who understood what they meant and felt because their DNA allows them to relate.  And I realized I had never let a woman be my friend to the point where I was safe and vulnerable to be a woman right back. These guys play all the time and got to great parties, they harass one another and fight and argue and wrestle, but first and foremost, they are for each other. They tell each other the truth.  They are fully safe and vulnerable in each other’s presence because they share a level of intimacy that thrives in an atmosphere of

trust.  And something inside of me really wanted that.

After many, many years of restorative work I am beyond words blessed to have that with so many now.  God still teaches me things about how to love and support the women in my life.  He convicts me when I let lies enter and I feel jealous or start to compare.  And those ladies who have chosen to share life with me, you reveal Him to me every day.

God made us in His image as daughters of His, helpers of men, and sisters to one another as part of His eternal family.  Satan is jealous of and despises all of these precious roles of ours.  He has successfully from the beginning torn at our identity and used our disobedience to drive us from truth and intimate relationship.  My love of Entourage was seeking to satisfy my deep need for sisterhood.  Beautiful and flawed interaction with beautiful and broken women refusing the lies and standing on the truth that we are safe in His arms and therefore safe to be for one another in our times of grief, full of joy in our times of celebrations, and just plain glad to see each other at every

point in between.

I love you sisters.  You are my entourage.

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