Cindy W. Morrison

Last night I had a truly wonderful experience although I probably should have seen the lump in my throat coming. When Girlfriends gather for fellowship there’s little doubt the tears will flow and hearts will swell.

It all started innocently enough. One of the pastor’s wives called me about a month ago and asked if I would emcee an event at our church. Sure! But as she began to tell me more about the program and that it would focus on Girlfriends, faith and fellowship, I knew this was more than mere coincidence. I even remember laughing at the time saying it would tie in nicely with my upcoming bookGirlfriends 2.0. “What book?” she asked. Hmmmm… out of thousands of members, she asked me to emcee an event about Girlfriends and didn’t even know that was the topic of my book?! God works in mysterious ways…

Fast forward to last night. I showed up excited to hang with the ladies and talk about how important it is that you surround yourself with supportive and loving Girlfriends. That’s right… dump Suzie Sabotage, Gayle Guilt and Nancy Needy. After I finished, we did a panel discussion with the wives of our ministers about their faith, Girlfriends and God. The questions were given to me ahead of time and we breezed through the first ones rather quickly. How did you come to know God? How did you meet your husband? But as we got to the last few questions, I wish I’d read through my script ahead of time. (Gulp!)

The question that started the lump: Would anyone share about your most difficult time and how you got through it. These women are amazing — breast cancer, a rough point during a marriage, facing what could have been the end of life. God not only gave us the gift of gab, but He enabled us to open our hearts and help others. As each woman talked openly and honestly, you could feel the emotional flood gates opening. There were no longer 100 semi strangers in a room, but instead a small group of Girlfriends helping each other be strong and have faith no matter the odds. I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. I mean seriously.. I’m a seasoned journalist… a true professional, right?! Not so much.

As I read the last question, my voice began to crack: Would you share what the Lord has been teaching you lately? Well, considering I’d recently suffered a very public layoff from a career that I truly loved… all I could think of was my recent lesson of humility. As each woman answered.. I kept my mouth shut and my heart guarded. Then.. the women who had asked me to emcee the event talked about how one of God’s greatest lessons is humility. What?.. my heart stopped. Had I accidentally said something out loud? That’s when I realized that it is both God and Girlfriends who know our hearts, help us get through the tough times and teach us lessons whether we think we need to learn them or not. We just have to allow them in.

Before I even realized what I was saying, I opened up and spoke about the humility I had learned during the last year. I wasn’t the only one at our TV station laid off due to the economy, but because I was a main anchor I was the most public. Sure, when all this went down I could have pretended that I left the station because I found something better. But instead, I felt a calling to be honest and hopefully help and maybe even inspire the thousands of others in our country who have lost their jobs. I truly believe we can survive and even thrive our changing times! In fact, I’m constantly talking about what I have gained through this experience: more precious family time, I’ve written a book to hopefully empower other women and I’m more at peace than I have ever been. But it wasn’t until last night that was honest with others (and myself) about my humility. It’s something I could only discover, of course, through my Girlfriends.

It was definitely no coincidence that I was asked to be a part of last night. I don’t really talk a lot about my faith in my upcoming book, but I truly feel lead to talk about it today in my blog. We need to have faith in God and our Girlfriends because they will help us discover things we never knew, inspire us to new heights and give us the courage to help others.