She Ain't Heavy, She's My Sistah

The words of the 1969 hit ‘He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother’ came to mind as I listened to a colleague share some of her most intimate and personal trials with me at 2:54 am.  Yes, I wanted to sleep, but it felt as though I were fulfilling my purpose by being there for her to call.  Do you have someone you can call at 2:00am?  Too often, we as women don’t value the friendships God has placed in our lives.

The songs begins, “The road is long with many a winding turn that leads to who knows where” – singlehood, marriage, pregnancy, divorce, death of parents, illness – which will test our friendships.  Do you have a sistah with whom you can navigate the long road with its myriad winding turns?  A sistah is:

·         S – someone

·         I – indelibly

·         S – sewn

·         T – to

·         A – another’s

·         H – heart

Being a sistah does not necessitate an adjective like a good friend or a genuine person – the word itself embodies all those adjectives.  When one person is indelibly sewn/attached to another, there is no room for gossip, pettiness, jealousy or competition.  A sistah is not afraid to tell you what she thinks in a loving manner, and knows when to just sit and cry with you.  She knows it’s not always necessary to say or do the right thing, but that sometimes just a hug will do.  So, why do we support shows that promote woman-on-woman crime?  Some reality shows tell us that it’s okay to cut each other down in order to build ourselves up.  Recently, an African-American teenager broke a record at the 2012 Olympics in London and her accomplishment took second place to her hair on websites across the country.  What made me agonizingly sick is that African-American women [like herself] were championing the onslaught.  At times like this, you need a sistah to share a good cry, a side-splitting laugh, a heartfelt prayer, an appropriate silence or a bowl of ice-cream (okay, that’s me); but you get the idea.   Proverbs 18:24 tells us, “Friends come and friends go, but a true friend (sistah) sticks to you like family.” (The Message)

Do you have a group of sistahs?  Are you a sistah?  We are supposed to bear each other up in good and bad times -  no, she ain't heavey, she's my sistah. 

Become a sistah today . . . I'm just thinking.