Have you ever experienced a friendship that allows you to be…you?  A friend with whom a conversation challenges yet leaves you assured of your worth and abilities? Not because you were built up by their lowering of themselves but rather, by their own security. A security that allows for the recognition of good, talent, abilities, worth in another. I have been given these friendships and have been influenced by them in my life. I even see glimpses of that woman within myself. The one who battles insecurities and the “best” rule that fights to guide my life to instead celebrate the gifts and abilities of others along with my own. As a result, I have been opened up to deeper friendships and interactions than I had ever thought possible.
I would like to introduce you to a few of the women that I have been blessed by friendships with. At some point or another, we have journeyed through life together. As it happens, we continue to journey together at a distance and one of the ways that we do that is via our blogs. Over the next few weeks, I have invited these women, my friends, to share a little of themselves here on my little space. They are going to share a glimpse of who they are, as they are.They have many talents, many gifts; they are “ordinary” women. They give themselves, they live well, they are brave, they mess up, they are imperfect, they pick up and keep going, and they are beautiful.

I steal the term, Kindred Spirit, from a certain (fictional) red-head who found many kindred spirits in her life, Diana being the first one. If you have read Anne of Green Gables you will quickly notice that Diana is very unlike Anne in almost every way and they still connect in a beautiful friendship. That is how I would define each of these women. Some are my closest friends, some I don’t know really well but, each has offered me a bit of the “kindred” in some way.

I hope that you will enjoy the posts that will be shared over the next few weeks, starting tomorrow when Krista, who writes on One Beautiful Life, and I trade spaces for the day.

How about you, who are some kindred spirits in your life? How have they influenced you?