Dolly Lesson 4 — Give the Gift of Friendship

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While Jesus was on the cross, women who loved Him stood close by. I believe those women also loved each other. As they watched this terrible thing happen to the One they loved, I’m glad they had one another.

There were also some women looking on from a distance . . .
When He was in Galilee, they used to follow Him and minister to Him;
and there were many other women who came up with Him to Jerusalem.
Mark 15:40-41

Among the women who came to believe in Jesus in the book of Acts was a remarkable woman named Tabitha (Dorcas in Greek). She continually did deeds of kindness and charity. When Dorcas died, disciples who knew that the apostle Peter was nearby sent two men to ask him to hurry to them. When Peter arrived “all the widows stood beside him weeping.” They showed him the clothes Dorcas used to make before she died. Peter prayed. Dorcas opened her eyes. “[Peter] gave her his hand and raised her up.” He called the widows and showed them that she was alive (Acts 9:39-40).

Imagine the relationships between these widows and the relationship they had shared with Dorcas. Perhaps they had served one another when their husbands died. Perhaps they had all become Christians near the same time. Perhaps they had prayed together. Maybe their children were friends. Perhaps they had taken care of Dorcas when she grew ill.

We women need one another.

I spent a lonely year from the fall of 1993 until the summer of 1994. When we moved back home to Tennessee that fall, Ray and I felt as if we were coming home. But we weren’t really coming home. We lived a couple of hours away from my hometown and a a little farther away from Ray’s. We were only back in Tennessee, not really back home. I began making a few very good friends, but I had left a large network of Christian friends in Urbana, Illinois, and I was lonely.

I remember one day in particular when I was at home by myself. We didn’t usually keep our dog in the house, but that day I let him wander around with me. When I wasn’t looking, Sparky found a doll I had bought when I was about fifteen years old while on a vacation with my grandparents and he mutilated her dress.

I bawled like a baby. It wasn’t so much the doll as the loneliness and that terrible feeling of not feeling at home in a new place.

We women have a wonderful gift we can give to other women — our friendship.

Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another,
because love covers a multitude of sins.
1 Peter 4:8

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