Issue 018: Sisterhood is Saving Me
It positions you, it sharpens you, and sometimes, it carries you when you don’t have the strength to carry yourself.
Welcome or Welcome back.
For most of my life, I was more of a guy’s girl. It wasn’t intentional—it was just where I found comfort. I grew up around men, practically raised on a football field, and never felt out of place in male-dominated spaces. There was a certain ease there, a lack of pressure to be too girly or to perform femininity in a certain way. For years, that was enough.
But as I got older, my experiences started shifting. I went through things that only another woman could truly understand. I started craving conversations that went deeper than surface-level interactions or shared environments. I needed a core.
And yet, I never truly prioritized building one. Over the years, I’ve always had at least one close female friend, but those relationships changed with each season of my life. I never took my expanding relationships with other women seriously—until I moved to Dallas and realized something profound: sisterhood is literally keeping me alive.
Yesterday, I hosted a Galentine’s Day gathering at my home with the core group of women I’ve grown closest to in this season. Most of us are connected by marriage, some of us have known each other for 20 years and are just now reconnecting in a real way. We’re all in different phases of life—some married, some with kids, some navigating careers and personal growth—but we share one common goal: to better ourselves and to get closer to God.
We can party and laugh, but then we turn around and have deep conversations about faith, scripture, life, and our individual philosophies. We see each other, really see each other. And yesterday made something incredibly clear to me:
Sisterhood is saving me. For the first time, I feel the security of a group of women who are not only intentional with me but who allow me to be intentional with them.
Building these relationships took work. It didn’t just happen—I had to be open to it. I had to shift my mindset from thinking I didn’t need deep female friendships to realizing they were essential. And now, I can see the fruit of that labor.
And it reminds me of Ruth.
We always talk about the book of Ruth in the context of waiting for a Boaz, but what if the real blessing of her story is the sisterhood that saved her?
Ruth had lost everything—her husband, her sense of security, the life she thought she’d have. But she had Naomi. And instead of leaving her to fend for herself, Ruth clung to her. She declared, "Where you go, I will go. Where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God my God." (Ruth 1:16)
Without Naomi, Ruth wouldn’t have known where to go. She wouldn’t have been positioned to meet Boaz. She wouldn’t have stepped into her destiny.
And what if Naomi didn’t have Ruth? She was an older widow with no sons left. She was grieving, bitter, and ready to isolate herself. But Ruth’s presence gave her renewed purpose.
They saved each other.
That’s what sisterhood does. It positions you, it sharpens you, and sometimes, it carries you when you don’t have the strength to carry yourself.
For so long, I thought I was better off in my comfort zone. But growth has a way of forcing you into spaces you didn’t realize you needed. And this is one of them.
So to the women who are hesitant about building sisterhood, to the ones who have been hurt by female friendships before, or to those who don’t know where to start—I get it. But I promise you, when you find your people, when you cultivate those relationships with care and intention, you will wonder how you ever did life without them.
Because truly, sisterhood is keeping me alive.
Stay blessed, stay creative, and stay aligned!
All is well,
Ashlee
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