My first day of college. I raced across campus and mentally kicked myself for not looking at the map to ensure I knew where I was headed. Not that the map would've helped. I don't read maps. I use landmarks and hope for the best. In this case all of the landmarks were new and unfamiliar to me at my East Texas university. The August humidity and my quick pace formed a fine layer of sweat under my brand new v-neck top and boot-cut jeans. I'm fairly certain everything about me screamed "FRESHMAN".
I eventually located the Language Arts building and burst through the double doors of my Spanish lab. The professor was already discussing the syllabus and almost every seat was taken. I frantically searched the room for an empty seat and located one right smack in the middle. Of course. As I made my way across rows of students, I could feel all eyes on me. At one point I was keenly aware of my backpack bumping someone in the side of the head. "FRESHMAN". Inches away from the seat and able to see relief on the horizon, I felt something grab the side of my jeans. My brain registered everything that followed in painful slow motion. A fellow female student was tearing away the size sticker than ran down the side of my new size twelve jeans. The horror. All the way down my pant-leg was the number twelve...12, 12, 12, 12. A complete stranger now knew that I was so very freshman with my new school clothes and could tell the world what size jeans I wore. Ouch. She handed me the tag and I spent the rest of that first class staring at my professor in defeat. I knew she was speaking to us, but my size twelve debacle had dulled her voice to a muffled drone in the distance. What a punch in the gut on what should've been a monumental day.
Four years later, despite that first day in Spanish lab, I became a college graduate. Somehow, I managed to put my embarrassment aside, made incredible, laugh-out-loud memories, found a love of writing, and graduated with honors. I am the poster child for underdogs everywhere. But in all seriousness, since stepping into the adult world after college, I've started to measure my relationships with women against the Great Tag Ripping of 2000. What that random girl did for me the first day of school was, in reality, a great kindness. She had options. She could've left the tag right where it was so students all over campus could have a good laugh at my expense as I migrated from class to class. Instead of immediately handing me the tag, she could have waved it around for other students to see. She certainly had a funny enough story! But this particular girl made the choice to quickly remove a very obvious sign that I was a freshman mess and did it discretely. Though it smarted, she did the best thing for me. I don't remember her name or her face, but I do know that she acted as a friend in the great community of women.
When I look at the women in my life, I now ask myself if I'm acting as a kindly Tag-Ripper. Am I able to withhold judgement and offer help where it is needed? Do I wave my friends' weaknesses in their face and make light of areas in which they struggle? Do I protect fellow women from the gossip and ugliness of others? The answers vary, depending on how close to Jesus I'm drawing at any particular time. The farther I walk down my own road and not that of my Savior, the more likely I am to fall down on the job as Tag Ripper. The Bible says, "There are friends who destroy each other, but a real friend sticks closer than a brother" (Proverbs 18:24). I don't know about you, but I want to be a friend who sticks closer than a brother, a Tag-Ripper. The world might just want to know a little more about our Jesus if there are more of us out there looking out for each other.
