Strength in Sisterhood: Sacred Stories, Shared Strength

How women carry one another through what we did not choose

This is the first letter I’ve published here. It is a written version of a talk I recently shared. It reflects on courage, faith, and the role women can play in strengthening one another during difficult seasons of life.

I’m a mother of four, a stepmother to two, an adopted mother to one, a grandmother to five, and I imagine still more grandchildren to come. Much of my life has been shaped by my family, faith, and the ordinary work of showing up for people across many years. But today we’re talking about something a bit more specific.

Sisterhood.

Many people have supported our family, men and women alike, and I’m deeply grateful for all of them. But in this I want to focus on one particular part of that experience: just a few of the women whose presence and choices stood out to me in a powerful way during a particularly difficult time in my life and the types of relationships between women that form us, strengthen us, and sometimes challenge us.

I’ve lived much of my life inside those relational spaces, as a sister, a mother, and now as a grandmother, and this is where most of what I’ve come to understand about women’s relationships was shaped.

Several years ago our family entered a season we never expected a life-altering accident that caused disability, and a long road of recovery. That season changed the way I understand courage, faith, and the role that other women can play in helping us to keep moving forward. Over time I’ve come to realize that the strength I’ve admired in many women was rarely formed in isolation. It often formed inside their relationships.

Courage in Scripture

And Scripture shows us this. One example appears in the story of Esther. Esther was a Jewish woman living inside the Persian empire at a moment when her people were facing extermination. The Persian empire was vast, and the Jewish people were scattered throughout it. A powerful official named Haman rose to influence in the king’s court and manipulated the king into issuing a decree that called for the complete destruction of the Jewish people. It was a political decision with the potential for devastating human consequences.

Esther had access to the king, but her access did not mean she had safety. In the Persian court, approaching the king without being summoned could cost a person their life. So, when the moment came for Esther to act, the stakes were very high.

Before she stepped forward, she did not isolate herself. She called for fasting. Her people fasted, and the women closest to her, her attendants fasted with her. These women had been assigned to her because of her royal position, yet in that moment their role became something much deeper. Esther may have walked physically into the throne room alone. But she did not enter that moment spiritually alone. She carried the prayers and fasting of her people with her. The final step was hers to take. But she was spiritually supported as she took it.

And there had already been a long chain of events that brought her to that moment. She had not planned to be queen. She had not planned to live inside the Persian royal court. Her life had become shaped by circumstances she had no control over. So understandably she did think about it and hesitate. She sent word back to Mordecai, her cousin, reminding him that approaching the king without being summoned could cost her her life. Mordecai then sends her a message in return that many of us might recognize:

“Who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”- Esther 4:14

In other words: the place you are standing in may not be an accident. The position you hold may carry responsibility you did not expect or want. Esther understood the risk clearly. She could be executed! There was no guarantee the king would let her live, let alone listen to her. No guarantee that her plan would work. Yes, the final step into the throne room was hers to take alone. But the faith surrounding her helped make that step possible.

And the outcome did not just affect Esther. Through her courage, God delivered an entire nation. The future of a people changed because one woman stepped forward carrying the faith and prayers of others with her.

The courage we see in someone is often supported by a community of faithful people standing with them. That tells us something important. Women’s relationships are not small. They carry consequences. They influence generations.

And Sisterhood is not automatic! It is intentional. It is chosen. And sometimes it is assigned.

Scripture shows us this pattern again at the very beginning of Exodus. Two women, Shiphrah and Puah were Hebrew midwives living in Egypt at a time when the Israelites were multiplying and growing strong. What began as a small community had become a large population living within Egypt’s borders. Pharaoh began to fear their numbers. His concern was political as much as it was social. If the Hebrew people continued to grow in numbers, he feared they might one day align with Egypt’s enemies and threaten Egyptian power.

So he attempted to control this future. He issued a brutal command: All Hebrew baby boys were to be killed at birth. This was fear trying to eliminate the next generation.

As midwives, Shiphrah and Puah stood at the very front line of that command. Pharaoh expected unquestioned obedience. He held authority over their lives, their safety, and their future. Defying him was not symbolic resistance. It was life-threatening disobedience to a ruler that the culture around them viewed as a god.

Yet Scripture shows us something important. They feared the one true God more than Pharaoh. So they chose not to obey the command, courageously, faithfully, together. They protected life when the power around them demanded death.

And because they feared God rather than Pharaoh, they preserved a generation. The very generation that would include Moses himself. History moved forward the way it did because two women chose faithfulness over fear.

Scripture shows us this again in the book of Ruth. There we find the story of Naomi and Ruth. Ruth was a widow  from Moab. She was a foreigner. Moabites were outsiders to Israel. They worshiped different gods and were often viewed with suspicion.

Ruth was not only grieving loss; she was socially vulnerable. She had no natural claim to belonging among Naomi’s people, the people of Israel. After her husband died she had no inheritance, no protection, and no guaranteed provision. The culturally wise choice would have been to return to her own people, to rebuild her life where she still had security and belonging.

To understand the weight of Ruth’s decision, it helps to understand the cultural reality she was facing. Widows in the ancient world were extremely vulnerable. There were no government safety systems. No inheritance protections for a foreign woman. No clear path for survival outside family connections. Returning to her own people would have been the logical decision. She could remarry. She could rebuild a stable life. And Naomi encouraged her to do exactly that.

But Ruth chose something else. She chose presence over practicality and loyalty over security. She chose to stay with Naomi even though it meant walking into a future that was uncertain and economically dangerous. And most significantly, Ruth also chose Naomi’s God.

“Your God will be my God.” - from Ruth 1:16

That statement meant leaving behind the religious system she had grown up with. It meant aligning herself fully with the people of Israel. This was not a small personal choice. It was a life-redefining one. And through that choice, Ruth entered the lineage that would eventually lead to King David, and generations later, to Christ himself. A relationship between two women shaped the direction of a family line that would influence history.

When we read these stories together, Esther, Shiphrah and Puah, and Ruth and Naomi, a pattern begins to appear. Courage grows where people stand with one another.

The woman who takes the visible step is often strengthened by others who reinforce her faith, her clarity, and her resolve. Sometimes that looks dramatic, but often it is quiet, a prayer, a conversation, a moment of loyalty when walking away would have been easier

But again and again Scripture shows us that when women align themselves in faith, something shifts, clarity grows, courage becomes strengthened, and the story moves forward.

Scripture also shows us the other side. Women’s relationships have tremendous power and influence, but not all of it is necessarily healthy or supportive.

In Genesis we see this in the story of Sarah and Hagar. God had promised Sarah a son. The promise had been spoken clearly, yet years had passed without fulfillment and Sarah aged. The promise seemed impossible. Instead of continuing to wait, Sarah moved toward what seemed like a reasonable strategy and gave her servant Hagar to Abraham to bear a child in her place. What began as strategy became  a relational fracture, jealousy, resentment, and mistreatment followed. This relationship broke under the weight of a human solution that had stepped ahead of trust in God’s promise. And the consequences did not remain contained. Hagar’s son Ishmael and Sarah’s son Isaac became the beginnings of two peoples whose tensions still echo through history today.

Scripture makes something very clear in these stories. For better or for worse women’s relationships were never small!

And this is where some of my own story lives, not in perfect sisterhood, but in this tension. Sisterhood is something I am still learning. And there are some things I’m still not sure about.

When Life Changed

One of the seasons that shaped this learning began about eight years ago, when our family entered a season we never  expected. For those who don’t know our story, 8 years ago my son Jonathan, was in a sudden, life-altering car accident. I received the call on a Sunday just after church, while I was still in the car. In a single moment life shifted into hospital rooms, ICU monitors, and decisions that would shape everything that followed.

There was no preparation. No roadmap.

Just responsibility arriving all at once.

In moments like that, decisions arrive before you are emotionally ready for them. Very early on I was asked to make the first life-and-death decision for my son. The doctors could stabilize him, but they could not tell me what his life would look like if he survived. They could not promise recovery. They could not promise awareness. They could not promise the kind of future most of us imagine when we think about the years ahead. They could only tell me the medical realities they could see in that moment.

And the question placed before me was whether to continue life support. The doctors were present. Family members were present. There were many voices in the room, people who loved my son deeply and who were trying to understand the same impossible situation. But as his mother, and as the person legally responsible for his medical decisions, the final decision rested with me. No one else could carry it. I listened carefully. I asked every question I could think of. The doctors answered what they could and were honest about what they did not know.

And then the moment came when a decision had to be made.

Leadership does not always arrive with preparation.

Sometimes it arrives with weight. In moments like that you realize something quickly. There is no perfect decision. There is only the decision you must make with the information you have in front of you. And the weight of that reality can feel overwhelming. Because when you are standing inside a moment like that, you know the decision you make will shape everything that comes next.

You are not thinking in abstract theological ideas.

You are thinking as a mother.

You are thinking about the child you have loved since the day they were born. You are thinking about the life that has already unfolded.

A question was placed before me, and I found myself asking it too: What would Jonny choose if he could answer for himself?

I knew my son. He was eighteen, an athlete and a person who believed in pushing forward and taking chances. If there was even a small possibility, he would take it. He would bet on himself.

I also knew that later in life he might weigh that choice differently. But at eighteen, I knew what he would do. So I chose to honor the decision I believed he would make in that moment of his life and trust God with the outcome.

When you are being asked to make decisions without knowing what the future will hold. Those are the kinds of moments when courage does not feel heroic. It feels heavy. It feels uncertain. And it is exactly in those moments that the presence of other people matters most.

What Sisterhood Looked Like

Some women helped in very practical ways. My sister stepped into the role of communicating with the outside world so that I could remain focused inside the hospital room. Other women went to our home and prepared it for our return.

They arranged furniture. They helped make space for a hospital bed. They helped arrange for the installation of a wheelchair ramp. They were quietly preparing the next stage of life before we even knew exactly what that life would look like.

And that is something I have come to appreciate deeply. Sometimes sisterhood looks like someone standing beside you in a prayer circle. And sometimes it looks like someone arranging what needs to be in place so you can get through your front door when you come home. Both are forms of love. Both are ways women help one another to keep moving forward when life becomes overwhelming.

There was another moment in that season that showed me this same kind of sisterhood. After Jonny had been in the rehabilitation hospital for several months, my daughter was graduating from college. 

It was an important milestone for her and for our family. But I also felt very strongly that Jonny should not be left alone in the hospital during that stage of recovery, presence, protection, and connection mattered. I felt torn between two moments that both needed me, being present for my son in the middle of a life altering medical crisis and being there for my daughter to celebrate a major life accomplishment as she stepped into the next chapter of her life. 

So I called my aunt, a woman I trusted deeply and whose values I knew would bring comfort to me and to my son. Without hesitation she got on a plane, flew to Georgia, and stayed with Jonny so that I could fly home to attend my daughter’s graduation. It was another act of sisterhood. She stepped into a moment that mattered, not to take over my responsibility, but to help carry it so both of my children could be cared for in that season.

Later there were more decisions. Once Jonny stabilized, another question emerged: what would life look like after the hospital? There was no clear path.

I eventually made the decision to leave my teaching career, bring Jonny home so I could care for him myself, and move across the country to be closer to extended family. At that time I had no clear plan for how we would manage financially or how the daily realities of caregiving would work. I only knew that it was the path I felt called to take.

What I Understand Now

Looking back now I can see how closely those moments mirror the patterns we see in Scripture, different stories.l, different times, but the same meeting place of courage and responsibility.

What strikes me is that none of the women we’ve been talking about stepped into courage because life was simple. They stepped into courage because the responsibility had been given to them to carry.

Esther did not choose the empire she lived in, but she had to decide what faithfulness would look like inside it. Shiphrah and Puah did not choose Pharaoh’s command, but they had to decide what faithfulness to God would look like under extreme pressure. Ruth did not choose widowhood or vulnerability, but she had to decide what loyalty would look like when the future was uncertain.

And that is part of why those stories matter so much to me. Because courage often does not arrive in the way we expect. It does not arrive when we feel ready. It arrives when responsibility we didn’t ask for is suddenly placed on us. It arrives when the future is unclear. It arrives when we are asked to take the next step without full assurance of what comes after it.

And in those moments, the presence of other women can help make courage sustainable. Not because they remove the decision. Not because they carry the whole weight for us. But because they strengthen our ability to remain faithful inside the weight we have been Given to carry. That, to me, is one of the deepest truths of sisterhood.

And what stood out to me most in that season was not heroism. It was formation. I watched a pattern form, women recognizing where they could step in and choosing to do so.

There were moments when I could not explain what was happening because the grief and truth of it was just far too heavy for me to speak. Some women chose to pray. Others chose to speculate. That contrast made something unmistakably clear. Different choices create very different outcomes!

The way we respond to someone else’s hardship can either strengthen them or make the burden heavier. 

Sometimes courage looks like speaking. Sometimes courage looks like praying when someone else cannot yet find the words. Sometimes it simply looks like refusing to step away from someone else’s difficult moment.

There is another moment from that season that has stayed with me, because it became a turning point in Jonny’s access to the care that gave him the best chance at recovery. Jonny’s neurosurgeon ordered that he be transferred to a specialized rehabilitation hospital that had the expertise he needed. But the insurance company denied the transfer. Without that approval he could not go. I called the insurance company trying to understand the reason for the denial, because without that information there was no way to appeal the decision. A woman answered the phone and told me that the request had been denied and that she could not provide further details. The conversation ended, and I sat there just weeping, from grief, exhaustion and frustration.

About ten minutes later my phone rang. It was the same woman.

She was calling from her personal phone.

She explained that she wanted to help me file the correct appeal. Then she said something I haven’t forgotten. “I’m going to help you, but please do not tell anyone I did this. I could lose my job.” In that moment she chose courage over safety.

Because she helped me understand the exact reason for the denial, I was able to appeal the decision and eventually secure Jonny’s transfer to the rehabilitation hospital he needed for the best possible chance at recovery.

There was another moment in that same battle that showed me how sisterhood can appear in unexpected places. After the transfer itself was finally approved, the next challenge was transportation. Jonny would need an air ambulance to safely reach the rehabilitation hospital in Atlanta, and once again the insurance company was denying the request.

It was Friday afternoon, and offices were beginning to close for the weekend. I knew every day that passed could affect the kind of recovery that might still be possible for my son.

As I prayed about what to do next, a woman came to mind. I had met her about a year earlier when we were buying a home. She had been our realtor. By this time she was running for school board in our district, and I knew she was connected to many people in the community. So I called her and explained what was happening with the insurance company and the delay in getting Jonny to the rehabilitation hospital. As it turned out, she had the personal cell phone number of our state representative in her phone. And she knew him well enough to feel comfortable calling him at home over the weekend.

Jonny’s accident had been on news so many people in the community already knew what had happened.

And during those early days, something unexpected happened. At Jonny’s public high school, an announcement was made inviting anyone who wished to come meet at the flagpole to pray for him.

This was a public high school, and the invitation was open to students and staff who wanted to come. Students came. Teachers came. Staff came. Friends came. So many people gathered that they could not all fit into the photograph that was taken.

The school sits right along the main highway through town, so when that many people gathered outside on the lawn it was impossible to miss. The local news showed up and covered the story.

I was still at the hospital when this happened. 

Jonny was in intensive care in the trauma unit.

I didn’t see it myself.

But someone sent me a photo.

It came to me on my cell phone  while I was standing in his hospital room, this photo of a large circle of people standing outside his public high school praying for him.

Many different things were lining up at the same time, people praying, community attention, relationships already in place. Moments like this can look dramatic in a photograph and it was. But the truth is, many times in life, support looks much smaller. 

Sometimes it is just one person who shows up. And sometimes that one person is all you need.

Our state representative also happened to be in the middle of a reelection campaign at the time, and this situation had caught peoples attention. My realtor / school board  friend  made the call and our state representative contacted the insurance company. By Monday evening we were on an air ambulance flight headed to the rehab hospital.

Another woman had simply used the access she had, the relationships she carried to help open a door that I could not have opened alone.

Still sometimes courage does not look dramatic. Sometimes it looks like a quiet phone call from someone who chooses to help when the easier path would be to stay silent.

When Jonny was eventually transferred to Shepherd Center in Atlanta, the room we were given had a large window. Outside that window was what the hospital called their “secret garden.” It was a garden you couldn’t see from the street. The only way to see it was from inside the hospital looking out. In the middle of a season filled with uncertainty and exhaustion, that view became a quiet reminder that life was still growing beyond the room we were living in.

And then there was the wall! 

The FAITH wall was in my son’s hospital room. It was beneath the window that looked out into the secret garden, directly across from the entrance to the room. The room I lived in for months, sleeping on a pull-out chair because there was nowhere else to go as the Ronald McDonald house near the hospital was full. Cards began arriving, prayers, scripture, handwritten notes and so many signatures. And almost all of them were written by women. 

There were so many cards that I decided to do something intentional. I arranged them on the wall to spell one word.

FAITH.

Not as decoration. It was a Declaration!

I chose faith in that room. And every signature on those cards represented another woman choosing to stand in it with me.

I woke up to that wall. Jonny woke up to that wall.

Everyone who walked into the room saw it. It was a statement of where I stood. And how many stood with me. 

Looking back now, I can see something I didn’t fully understand in the moment. That courage rarely forms in isolation. Courage grows when we refuse to look away from difficult realities.  Courage grows when we choose prayer  instead of speculations. Courage grows when we use the positions we hold, in families, workplaces, churches, and communities, to strengthen one another in the work God has placed before them.

None of those women carried the whole story, but each one carried something that helped make the next step possible. Sisterhood became visible in that season.

What those women carried with me did not end in that hospital room. It had generational impact. It shaped how our family moved forward. It shaped how my daughters and sons understand courage and responsibility. It will shape how my grandchildren one day understand what faith looks like when life becomes difficult.

Because the choices we make in our relationships as women do not stay contained in a single moment! They reach beyond the moment. They shape our communities. They shape the  generations that come after us.

And that is exactly what we see in the biblical stories that we looked at earlier. Shiphrah and Puah preserving a generation. Ruth’s loyalty reshaping a family line that ultimately becomes part of the lineage of Christ. Esther’s courage protecting an entire people.

These were not small relational decisions. They carried responsibility. They carried real consequences. And they carried impact far beyond the moment those women were standing in.

The same is true for us. When I look back now I see each one of these women chose to carry something that they didn’t have to. And maybe that is one of the clearest ways to understand sisterhood. Not as sameness. Not as sentiment. Not always feeling close or easy. But as women recognizing what is theirs to carry in a particular moment, and carrying it in a way that strengthens life, courage, and faith in someone else.

And sometimes there are seasons when no one else shows up, and it is just you and God. Those seasons matter too. They shape us in ways we may not fully understand at the time.

But in this season, piece by piece, those acts formed something stronger than any one of us could have created alone. That is the power of sisterhood. It does not erase difficulty. It does not remove responsibility.

But it strengthens the people who must carry those responsibilities forward.

And that kind of strength changes outcomes. How we choose to show up. What we choose to carry forward. What we strengthen in one another. Those choices shape lives, sometimes quietly, sometimes publicly, sometimes in moments no one else fully sees, but the impact is real.

Scripture shows us that clearly. And our lives are not disconnected from those same patterns. We may not stand in royal courts. We do not stand in the opening pages of Exodus. We may not stand on the roads of Bethlehem. But we do stand in real moments that require courage. We do stand in relationships that carry weight. And we do make choices that shape what comes next.

So the question is not whether women’s relationships matter.

Scripture and life have already answered that.

The question is what kind of presence we will choose to be in one another’s lives? What will we strengthen?

What will we carry forward? And what kind of future will those choices help create?

Because what we choose, and what we carry forward matters! So let’s carry that awareness with us into what comes next.

With love,

Michele

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