The BROKEN WOMAN
She sits on the edge of the couch with her hands clasped in her lap. A tear has already slipped down her cheek, and she lets it stay there. For once, there is nobody in the room she has to reassure.
People have called her strong for so long that they ask how she manages before they ask how she is. She knows what they mean by it. Still, she would love for somebody to sit beside her and say, “Tell me what happened,” then give her enough time to answer.
Some of what broke her happened in a single afternoon. Some of it took years. She remembers the people who promised to show up and the mornings she went about her business with her feelings still hurt because there were bills to pay and somebody waiting for her to call back.
When she finally prays, the words are plain. “Most High, I am tired. I need help.” Psalm 34:18 speaks of the Lord drawing near to those with a broken heart. There is comfort in knowing she can come before Him in the middle of a sob, with half a sentence and no idea how to finish it. Bible Gateway
One morning she wakes up hungry and makes herself breakfast. Later that same day, a song catches her off guard, and she cries while washing the dishes. Psalm 147:3 says the Lord heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. She can give thanks for the appetite that came back and still tell Him how much the song hurt. Bible Gateway
Eventually, she tells someone she trusts the part of the story she has always left out. She gets through it slowly. The woman listening sets her phone down, pulls her chair closer, and stays until she’s finished. For the first time in a long while, somebody has heard the whole thing.
The TOXIC WOMAN
At dinner, her friend reaches across the table for the phone. The woman in burgundy pulls it back with a little smile. She knows the message was private. That is precisely why she waited until there was somebody else at the table to bring it up.
By the time her friend says, “I told you that in confidence,” the woman has already decided how she’ll tell the story later. She’ll say her friend made a scene at dinner. She’ll leave out the part where she held up the phone again after being asked to put it down.
Sometimes her cruelty is quieter. She repeats a confidence and says she’s worried. She slips an insult into a compliment and waits to see whether the other woman will laugh along. If the woman speaks up, she asks why everything has to be taken so seriously.
She may have learned long ago what it feels like to be the one everybody laughs at. Perhaps she remembers scanning the room to see who would defend her and realizing nobody would. Her own pain deserves care, and the friend whose confidence she broke deserves an honest account of what happened.
Ephesians 4:29 asks believers to use words that build up the person who hears them. There are plenty of ways to tell the truth about a friend. The woman in burgundy chose the one that would embarrass her, and she knew it before she picked up the phone. Bible Gateway
If she wants to make things right, she can start with what she did. “You trusted me with something private. I shared it to embarrass you. I was wrong.” Her friend gets to decide whether she wants another dinner, another conversation, or some distance. A sincere apology leaves that decision with her.
The GODLY WOMAN
She looks gorgeous in emerald silk, her curls falling over one shoulder and her King James Bible held close. The portrait catches her at peace. The life she leads when nobody is looking is where we see what that Bible means to her.
Before the Sabbath begins, she sets aside the week’s work and makes room for rest, Scripture, and prayer. Some weeks she comes to that time grateful. Other weeks she comes irritated, worried about money, or tired of waiting for an answer she has prayed for more than once. She brings the whole truth before the Most High.
James 1:22 calls believers to be doers of the word. She thinks about that when someone tells her a piece of gossip she’d love to repeat. She thinks about it again when she realizes that the person she owes an apology to is somebody she still feels annoyed with.
Proverbs 31:26 joins wisdom with kindness in a woman’s speech. When a friend asks her a hard question, she tells her what she honestly sees. She has the conversation in private, gives her friend time to answer, and listens when she learns there was more to the story.
Galatians 5:22–23 describes the fruit of the Spirit, including love, patience, gentleness, and self-control. Sometimes that fruit shows up in the pause before she sends a message she wrote while angry. She reads it again, deletes the sentence she put there to hurt somebody, and keeps the sentence that explains why she’s hurt.
She can forgive someone and decline another invitation. She can wish a woman well and choose to keep her private life to herself around her. If she has spent years believing that kindness requires her to say yes, saying no with a clear conscience may take some practice.
There will be days when the godly woman is the one crying on the couch. There may also be a day when she recognizes herself in the woman holding up the phone. Her faith gives her somewhere to take both truths. She can ask the Most High to comfort her where she has been wounded and correct her where she has wounded someone else.
When I look at these portraits, I think about the woman I want to be on a day when I am tired, disappointed, and have every chance to be cruel. I want to be able to tell the Most High exactly how I feel, tell the person I hurt exactly what I did, and keep safe the things another woman trusted me enough to say.