Art credit: Jan Spangler, illustrator extraordinaire.

When I was a teen my friends and I were all about “girl power.” You know what I mean; the beautiful belief that inherent in womanhood is something fabulous, powerful and good.

As a grown up woman I believe it now more than ever…and I believe God designed it that way.

Something remarkable happens when women come together to support each other. Sparks fly as spurs connect and boots walk boldly right up to the problem that needs to be shared, dissected, solved, or soothed. There is joy in the camaraderie even when there is sorrow to be shared.

As a lover of the written word I believe it happens here out in the seeming vastness of cyberspace as well. Women share. They shout their pain, their love, their honesty into the black hole of space and wonder if anyone heard it. They offer themselves up in the form of words typed on a page, cast adrift like a message in a bottle, and they wonder if they will be read.

Do you know what happened yesterday?

Hundreds and hundreds of blogs, like those bottles, were opened…the sacred pages gently removed, smoothed and read. I know this because of you.

Because you took the #ponyup challenge.

Started late at night after my own weeks spent wondering if people read what I write and wondering if others felt the same. Then suddenly I wanted to hug the Internet (and all the women in it) and yell into the black hole – “I hear you! You are not alone. We are reading each other. So, let’s pony up and say so – out loud.”

So I challenged women to pony up and leave an encouraging comment on the sites they read.

And a twitter hashtag was born #ponyup. Boy, did you all jump on the bandwagon with a vengeance. You went buck-wild with the comments and pony-ed up tweets and posts and comments and buckets and buckets of affirmation for all the hundreds of writers out there.

We did it, girls. We told each other. We said,

What you write, what you share in the dark hours of the night after tucking kids in and cleaning house, matters.

The honesty that sharing costs you – we treasure that.

The snort-milk-out-your-nose funny portraits of motherhood that you paint – we love those.

When you weep over the entry you are typing, we are reading it with blurry eyes and a wet keyboard on the other side of the screen.

You are not alone. We hear you.

Girl power. There’s nothing like it.

I didn’t plan to share this with (In) Courage. I had a whole other post ready to go for today. But when you spend a day like I did yesterday, running with the wild horses ponies, you can’t write about anything else.

Thank-you for riding the pony up express with me. It was a blast. For those of you who joined in, what was your favorite part? And for all of us, let’s spread the pony up love with our sisters. 

You can start right here by leaving a comment about one of your favorite bloggers and you’ll be entered to win two $25 gift cards to the (in)courage shop – one for you and one for a blogger you love!

May all of this be a reminder to you that – even if you think no one hears you – the God who gave you your voice, your story and your words always, always does.

Keep those comments coming anywhere you read; anywhere you ride, remember to pony up.

Yee-Haw!

Art credit: Jan Spangler, pony up aficionado and illustrator of the Survivor Girl card series.

by Lisa-Jo

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