13. World War Women I: Mean Girls

Raise your hand if you’ve ever been affected by a Mean Girl? 🙋‍♀️Raise your hand if you’ve ever acted like a Mean Girl yourself? 🙋‍♀️

This is for any woman who’s ever gotten trapped in the rat race of comparison, had a rumor spread about her, felt isolated, rejected, putdown, left-out, judged, or humiliated. This is for any woman who’s ever felt like she would do whatever it took to prove herself to someone else. This is for the woman who ever felt less than.

This is also for the woman who put others down thinking it would make her feel better. Judged someone else or spread a rumor because it made her feel included. Intentionally or unintentionally hurt someone’s feelings because she was angry, jealous, or threatened.

This is for all of us. On some level or another we’ve all come face to face with a mean girl, even the one in the mirror, if we’re honest. Let’s remove the facade of perfection and breathe for a moment. Let our carefully planted guards down and try to see each other clearly.

Wouldn’t it feel good to stop pretending we have it all together? Stop pretending we have all the answers? Stop being afraid to let ourselves be seen as we are? Chances are we all look a lot more alike than we know. We don’t see it because of the raging war going on between us.

Jesus, Prince of Peace, Lover of Our Souls, we cry out to you in this place. Invade us with Your healing love and truth. Calm the raging seas between us all and place us on Your solid and Holy ground. Open our eyes, our hearts, our minds to see one another as You see us. To love one another as You love us. Let nothing come from this writing that isn’t from You.

There is room enough on this earth for all of us. Why do we compete? Why do we compare? I have watched women destroy themselves and others just to prove that they’re better. Like there isn’t enough pie to go around so we’ve got to squash anything viewed as a threat to our piece. Social media makes it SOOOOO much worse.

Someone else’s success should have no affect on your worth. Why do we let it? God’s plan is big enough that we all have a part to play. As uniquely made as our fingerprints, so are the plans He has for us. And shouldn’t the end game be the same? To foster others to victory as well?

We’re all on our own beautiful journey to live our best life. But it’s said that you become the average of the people with which you spend the most time. Slowly but surely, the good and the bad, you pick things up from others. This is one reason for, “above all else guard your heart.”

Being vigilant to the way others effect us is part of that. One day a few years ago, God woke me up. I was comparing and competing. Not to be better, but to keep up. Can anyone relate? I saw myself as unworthy of removing the sandals from their feet, and grappled desperately trying to be someone worthy of their friendship and respect. In my mind, to repay them for what I thought they did for me that I didn’t deserve. To repay them for being kind enough to be my friends. Something that, as time went on, was more and more apparently impossible.

What person wouldn’t get an ego boost from such loyalty and admiration? Eventually these friends began treating me as weak and helpless and I believed I was. Any sign of strength or independence was resented and criticized. Listen, no one can make you feel any which way without your permission. Be mindful of the permission you give!

I take full responsibility for my part, and God’s Grace is sufficient for us all. Not one of us is righteous! I could have guarded my heart better and exercised better boundaries, recognized my worth and understood my influence. But Jesus does not give up. If we allow, we can be continually molded. Through these experiences I did learn, and I can only imagine my grappling to be worthy enough came off at times as trying to be better then.

Do you see the vicious cycle here? I, not knowing my own worth and value, was just trying to elevate myself to the level I esteemed them, and lived in a state of feeling always beneath. In turn they, not understanding their own worth and value, tried to elevate to where they saw me. Since we were all trying to “keep up” with each other, it became by default a competition. Though our direct thought process was not one of “I need to be better than her,” but “I want to be more like her.” Sisters, let’s get off this hamster wheel!

The truth is that people are not our enemy. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:20) But the “spiritual forces of wickedness” definitely enjoy seeing us duke it out.

As we go about our week, let’s ask for the wisdom and clarity to see one another as we are, as a full person, as a flawed person, as a beloved and valued person. What role have you played in World War Women? What can you do to wage peace, both internally and externally? What’s one step you can take to come off the hamster wheel?

Maybe it would help to dig a little more into the different types of wars waging in Part 2 next week.

LiveALIVE Today,

Cindy