The Beauty of Friendships with Older Women

Essays

My life has been greatly enriched by women older than me.

I’ve had many friends my age, of course, as that tends to be the natural trend in life, however, if I were to think of the deepest friendships and the most deep and meaningful conversations I’ve had, they have been with older women — much, much older women. I simply cannot imagine my life without these dear older women in my life. Their love, kindness and most of all, wisdom, played a huge part in not only my personal growth, but my spiritual growth too.

Whether your friend is 5, 10, 15, 20, 25+ years older than you, you can be sure that if there’s one thing a big age gap entails, it’s wisdom. Those added years your older friend have are precious, priceless life lessons that you can learn from.

It’s a cliche, but age is truly just a number. If you have similar interests, it doesn’t matter if your friend is your age or much older than you. I am just as good friends with my friends who are twice my age to the ones who are my age. (Funnily enough, I am also known to be friends with a lot of my mother’s friends, who are all nearing seventy years old!)

In Titus 2:3-5, it gives a beautiful illustration and command, even, of older women teaching younger women: “Older women likewise are to be reverent in behaviour, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.”

So how do you find friendship with a lovely, older women?

We first go to prayer. Pray about your desire for friendship with a godly, wiser, older woman. God is so good and is able to bring you that friend, even if it’s just one lady. Ask God to open your eyes to someone that He knows you will have a sincere, loving friendship with.

You can also seek out this older lady in your life by a few ways. First, you can always look at your own family. If there is someone your family you’ve always taken an interest in, you can always reach out and get to know her better.

If there’s an older woman in your women’s Bible study, why not reach out and ask her if she would like to have coffee sometime? Even better, if you know of a widow at church, reach out to her. We are to care for the widows (James 1:27) and you could be the companion she so desires and needs at this time.

Whomever this older woman in your radar is, I challenge you to not only pray about it, but to be bold and reach out to that someone. I can assure you that they would be delighted that a younger person would be interested in friendship and fellowship with them.

I speak from personal experience and that is why I am so passionate about this topic, because for me, friendships with older women have been some of the sweetest.