She said, "The older you get the more important the women in your life become."

When I was twenty-five I worked for an attorney who leased space to several other attorneys.  One of which was the wife of a local judge, and that affected her personality to some degree.  Every day she seemed to become less and less passive in her passive aggression toward me.  Every day that her aggression passed over me I became less and less tolerant and began to wonder how to handle it.  After praying about it and laboring over it while biting my tongue, one day I called her by name and asked nicely, "Have I done something to offend you?"  She looked at me in shock and said, "You know Vicky, the older you get the more important the women in your life become."  That was such an odd response to me, but from that day forward her behavior completely changed toward me and over the years I have thought on it many times. 

Outside of my grandmother and two dear friends Lisa and Michelle growing up, it was not the women in my life that I was able to count on.  However, as that attorney said, it is the women in your life, if you surround yourself with the right ones, who will become the most important people in your life.  Sometimes even those you could not count on, once they are older adults, finally grow into their adulthood and show up again as advocates.  At that point we have to decide if we will be bitter about the past or rise above it and allow that person or persons to be better to us.

Recently, I went through and continue to grow through the most difficult personal struggle of my life.  Without the group of women who I call my "Circle of Sisters", I could not have made it through it.  I am so thankful that God told me to reach out to a handful of women who reached in and carried me through my darkest moments and continue to lift me on my journey to the other side of sorrow.