“I have no good female friends.”
“Women are too much trouble.”
“My best friends are men.”
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Generally, these perspectives come from women who have been hurt deeply by other women. However, women who continue to hold on to these hurts will never experience the treasure of having a close female friendships.
When I was a teenager, I wanted to be best friends with “Sue”. However, “Sue” wanted to be best friends with “Joyce”. I was crushed.
The hurt ran so deep that I made up my mind that I should avoid any best friend relationships. A female best friend wasn’t worth the pain and effort.
About ten years later, I met my current closest female friend “Ruth”. There have been a lot of ups and downs through the years, but it has become one of my greatest joys in this life.
Here are the top 8 mindsets for having a female best friend:
1) Fight for your friendship.
As “Ruth” and I became close, we realized that the friendship would be tried and tested. We knew that God would use our friendship to mature us and prepare us for His purposes. Without a doubt, it would take a high level of persistence to keep the friendship.
Many years ago, I remember one afternoon when we sat in the car in an effort to resolve a conflict. In that conversation, we both committed ourselves to fight for our friendship. About twenty years have passed and we are still very good friends despite our disagreements, unloving actions toward each other, marriages, children, heartache and the like.
We’ve been through a lot together.
If you want an exceptional friendship that would last a lifetime, you both need to agree to fight for your friendship when the going gets tough.
2) Go deep.
In order to love deeply, you have to go deep. This will involve a willingness and consciousness to expose your “good, bad and ugly” in your being. In essence, you have to be vulnerable.
Only then would you be able to know if you’re being truly loved and if you will, in return, choose to love the other person.
If you’ve been hurt by other women in the past, it will take time (maybe years) to come to the point where you feel this person can be trusted with your heart.
Best friends are for the long haul, but just know that you may not experience the level of closeness that you desire until you go deep.
3) Love unconditionally.
Learning to love your best friend is one of the best training grounds for marriage. Although you have similarities because you’re both women, there would be differences in values, experiences, opinions, customs, family culture, etc. That being the case, conflicts are inevitable.
Therefore, accept and love your friend as she is today ….not the friend that you’d like her to be in the future. You cannot change her and she cannot change you.
Just as God loves you unconditionally with your all your flaws, you are also called to love your friend.
4) Don’t run from the process.
When your heart hurts and the pain is unbearable, the easiest thing to do is to harden your heart and move into another friendship or ditch female friendships altogether.
However, you wouldn’t grow. If you sincerely desire to mature as a Christian woman, you have to learn to stick with the harsh realities of life and not run away. These are opportunities for growth.
There have been several times through the years when I felt like giving up my friendship with “Ruth”. At every point, God brought me to the point of yielding to Him.
I would often pray that “God would pour his love into my heart by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5).” I kid you not … every single time, I felt the coldness in my heart begin to melt away.
Then, I was able to love “Ruth” again. Also, I would read 1 Corinthians 13 to remind myself what true love looks like.
Although she’s my female best friend, I have experienced the greatest hurts with her than with any other friendship. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t exchange the growth and closeness for an easier process.
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NIV
5) Choose loyalty.
Men gossip too, but women seem to have a special inclination toward it. In order to have a strong friendship, you need to decide to protect your friendship.
This means that you avoid bad-mouthing your friend with others. If you’re having a conflict with your best friend and you need the advice of a third party, be careful to give a fair and sober account of the circumstances, without skewing the information to make you look better.
Also, choose someone who will not take sides. This would mean that you need to speak with an emotionally mature Spirit-filled person. You don’t want to destroy that person’s relationship with your friend “Ruth”.
I have found that as a friendship blossoms, the desire to paint your friend in a bad light goes away. So you have to ask yourself, how deep is this friendship?
Additionally, loyalty involves defending your friend. If someone comes to you and begins to gossip about your friend, you need to respectfully and tactfully ask them to speak directly to your friend.
In closing, always choose to believe the best about your friend (if you choose the right friend to begin with!).
6) Extend grace and mercy.
As flawed human beings, we will hurt each other. Just expect it. Indeed, how we deal with it is what matters.
Understand that you and your friend are in a process. As a result, you will make foolish decisions and hurt the people closest to you. Your best friend will do the same.
Some years ago, I read this simple explanation about grace and mercy in a Daily Bread.
“Grace is receiving what we don’t deserve.”
“Mercy is not receiving what we do deserve.”
Just as Jesus extends grace and mercy toward us, in the same way, you need to extend those qualities to your friend.
7) Become emotionally mature.
As a growing Christian, you need to learn to handle your emotions well. An emotionally mature Christian woman is in touch with her emotions and allows the Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit to guide her behavior.
On the other hand, an emotionally immature woman will be on an out-of-control emotional roller coaster ride. Subsequently, she will damage herself and others in the process.
Are you leaning toward emotional maturity or emotionally immaturity? Click here to get the “Emotional Maturity verses Emotional Immaturity” checklist in your Inbox. You’d actually want to see this list!
When you read the list, you’ll begin to see areas for your own growth and have some ‘aha’ moments on why your last ‘best friend’ relationship didn’t work out. The fact is all of us need to mature emotionally!
“… emotional health and spiritual maturity are inseparable. It is not possible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature.” – Peter Scazzero (Emotionally Healthy Spirituality: It’s Impossible to Be Spiritually Mature, While Remaining Emotionally Immature)
8) Forgive frequently.
If you want a friendship that will last for a lifetime, you need to forgive and forgive and forgive. The person will hurt you time and time again. Admittedly, their actions may not be intentionally wicked or selfish but it happens.
When things get really tough, take a moment and remember all the times that your friend forgave you in the past when you have hurt her. For an even better comparison, recall all the sins that God has forgiven you!
“Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” Colossians 3:13 NIV
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Summary
Cultivating a friendship with a female best friend will take a lot of investment. However, if you do the work and stay the course, you will find that it will be a great source of love, laughter, enjoyment and personal growth.
It will enhance your life tremendously even if it might be painful at times. For a building a strong healthy relationship with your best friend,
- Fight for your friendship;
- God deep;
- Love unconditionally;
- Don’t run from the process;
- Choose loyalty;
- Extend grace and mercy;
- Become emotionally mature; and
- Forgive frequently.
Do you have a female best friend? What do you love about your friendship? What tips can you share that has strengthened your friendship with your female best friend? For those of you who have felt betrayed and hurt, what key insights can you share that would help the rest of us to have better friendships? Please share by commenting below.
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With love,
Kimberly
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“Changes that Heal: Four Practical Steps to a Happier, Healthier You” by Dr. Henry Cloud
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Yes, I have a female best friend. Not for long. However, it feels like a lifetime. God gave me more than I prayed for. She is amazing and we are the total opposite of each other. How does it work? My advice is to be open to something new. We have been open with each other and have learnt so much. We embrace our differences and use them to compliment each other. One thing I love about our friendship is that we pray together and do bible study. I love those nights. For anyone reading, pray about finding a true friend. Be open and know that love suffers long.
Hi Naomi, thanks for sharing! It is truly a blessing when you find a true friend. Love that you two pray and study the Bible together!
I’ve found the “female best friend” to be quite a elusive thing but something I keep praying for. I’ve had many close female friends who I’ve opened up to and shared my life with and then suddenly I get left behind. E.g. there’s new boyfriend/husband and now our regular coffee dates are gone. Or she now has kids and every minute of our conversation is about her kids. And though I can indulge for a while, I don’t have kids and so I just can’t relate. What makes it worse is that I am also a very good listener and I just kind of end up being a dumping ground for mommy issues. I don’t really resent these ladies because it’s not their fault that they’ve had significant life changes. But I think when you’re single with no children and you don’t have a “single with no children” friend, it’s hard to build the kind of friendship you talk about here. Just my opinion.
I hear you, Candi! The best friend to which I’m referring is married with 2 children. We knew each other while she was single. It was actually after she got married that our friendship really began to grow. I honestly can’t think of what made it work. Since I was the single one, I would constantly be by their home. I made myself a part of their family:) Oftentimes, she would share about marriage and parenting. Being around her family helped me to have a sober view of marriage and gather a lot of insights and wisdom about life. I guess that everyone’s experience is different. Anyway, I hope you find a true kindred spirit with whom you can journey through life:)