Why I've Chosen my Sisters as my Very Best Friends
By: Bethany Baird
Late(ish) last night my three younger sisters and myself loaded into the car and headed to one of our favorite local coffee shops.
We laughed, we talked, we sang, and we tried not to annoy each other on the car ride down.
Going out for coffee on a Saturday night, with my three younger sisters, is one of my favorite things to do. Those girls (even though two of them are several years younger than me) are truly my bestest friends and my top choice for people I want to chill with and have a good time with.
To be totally honest I haven't always felt this way about them.
When I was a teenager I viewed my younger siblings as people I "had" to hang out with when I was told to. I didn't view them as my top pick of friends.
Back then my idea of a fun get together was hanging out with people not related to me.
I wanted to be with my church friends or basketball friends and not with my family.
I loved my family to pieces, but I bought into the lie that "friends" are the people outside of your family. I believed that it wasn't cool for the younger siblings to tag along, much less to spend my Friday or Saturday night with them.
Fast forward to today and my mindset has totally shifted.
I've realized that my siblings are handpicked by God to be the people connected with me forever.
God could have chosen to give me any girls in the world as sisters, but he specifically chose the ones that I currently have (the cuties in the picture above are those hand picked girls).
When I think ahead into my future, I realize that these girls will be the aunts of my children and the women who will for sure be in my life. I don't know if my current "non-family" friends will still be around. As we all know, people move to different cities and countries and life continues along.
Family is a permanent fixture whether we like it or not. We can try to remove them from our life, but they will always be family.
I'm so grateful that God helped me realize just how valuable and special my sisters truly are. I now spend the majority of my free time hanging out with those girls. I don't do it because I feel like it's my duty, I do it because I really want to.
Over the past few years my siblings and myself have intentionally chosen to spend time together and build our relationships. As a result we have learned to love each other like true sisters and best friends.
My sisters are the girls that I want to stand with me in my wedding. My sisters are the girls I want to influence my future daughters. My sisters are the girls I want to grow old with. I can't imagine doing life with anyone else.
What is your view on your sisters or siblings?
When I peek into the majority of young Christian women's lives, I see that they have bought into the same lie that I bought into.
The lie that, "family is boring and friends are cool."
That is such a HUGE lie from Satan, but sadly we've taken the bait. Instead of working on our relationships with our siblings, we simply endure them or put up with them. We don't view them as hand chosen by God. We don't view them as the long term permanent people in our lives.
We as Christian women need a major revamp in our thinking.
We need to learn to view our sisters and brothers as God's first selection for friends in our lives. We should start building friendships with the people closest to us and then work our way out from there.
All relationships take work. All true friendships take sacrifice, forgiveness and flexibility.
It's time we as Christian girls look in our very own houses and open our eyes to the people God placed there. It's time for us to re-evaluate our "bestie" selection and ask ourselves if we've totally missed the people in front of our noses.
If I asked you who your two best friends are, who would you say?
I want to challenge you to make an effort this week to spend time with your sister or brother. Start building that relationship and start working on making that person (or persons) your best friend and first hang out choice.
If you want to learn more about family and how to love them, check out the blog post I wrote about my own
Matthew 6:21 says, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
Learn to treasure your family and your heart and emotions will follow. Change your mindset about them and start choosing to spend time with them on a regular basis
Remember friends come and go but family is forever.
Article from: GirlDefine
