As older women, I think one of the examples we need to set for the younger women who follow us is to STOP GOSSIPING about one another! There's something about all of us that just LIKES TO KNOW STUFF.. right??? RIGHT. But we have to ask the Holy Spirit to give us the strength to keep a confidence confidential. We need one another. WE need to pray with and for one another. But one of the things so many younger women tell me when they send me emails is that they can't really find someone they can trust to keep their problem confidential.
A while back I asked a friend to help me pray about a situation in my family. It was a serious glitch in the road for someone and I knew that prayer was the only answer. I didn't want to embarrass the family member, but I needed prayer support. She said she would pray. So imagine my surprise when I spoke to a friend 900 miles away who had heard about my prayer request and asked me about that family member's situation. How did he hear? Through the church secretary of his church - who is close friends with the close friend I asked to help me pray. I have forgiven my gossipy friend. She has so many wonderful qualities and I want to keep her as my friend. Sadly, though, I don't share the deep deep needs of my heart with her anymore. Not unless it doesn't matter if 45 people who live 900 miles away also know about it.
I love to hear stories. I love to hear gossip. I do. We all do. That's why it's so difficult to see satan's hand in it. It's such fun - in our flesh- to hear that others are not doing as well as they pretend. Or that others have problems too. It might be FUN.. but it isn't LOVE.
If we all just keep gossiping then none of us will feel safe to ask for prayer. And if we don't pray, then we don't get answers. And if we don't pray, then God's word that His House shall be called a "house of prayer" gets thwarted. And we rarely see that the thing we think nothing of - GOSSIP - is the VERY THING that is killing our testimony for Christ.
Dear older women, there are many younger wives out there LONGING to share the DEEP DARK burdens of their lives with you. Be someone they can feel safe with. I have learned, over the years, that talking about people who talk to me is a great great destructive tool of the enemy.
Dear younger wives... being young doesn't mean you aren't old enough to know that gossiping is wrong.
This isn't deep theological truth here.
It's BASIC CHRISTIANITY.
People need people they can trust. Especially.. in the Body of Christ.
A person who can be trusted is getting rarer and rarer.
XO,
Mrs. Older
RIGHT ON! In our church, the pastor's wife is the biggest gossip and the pastor won't hear anyone who tries to explain this to him. We are so needy for real and open friendships among the women in our church but we don't ever tell anything to the pastor's wife.
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