Alligators & Roses

Adapted by Diane Nix from the “Friendships of Women” – by Dee Brestin

Talking with women in leadership and ministry wives reveals a constant threat of jealousy and competition – within the church walls. Relationships are tenuous and treacherous in the church community today. How do women’s leaders manage healthy boundaries and good friendships within their churches, often with the women they lead. 

Years ago, I read a book on women’s friendships. It altered how I looked at a healthy woman looking for friendship and how I dealt with a woman who is unhealthy and cannot have healthy relationships. Dee Brestin, the author of “The Friendships of Women,” used two terms to describe the woman who is unhealthy and the woman who is healthy regarding friendships. I have borrowed these two terms and written concerning my experience with both types of women. The two terms are alligators and roses. Which would you classify yourself? Do you know how to identify an alligator or rose? Let’s explore these two types of women.

An unhealthy woman with an alligator persona can be characterized by the following:

• She is religious.
• She is competitive.
• She has her own agenda.
• She will be deceptive.
• She is jealous of what others have and what she perceives she should have.
• She is unpredictable.
• Above all, She is jealous of other women.

Jealousy will drive this woman’s quest to get what she believes will satisfy her soul’s desires. This pursuit always ends in leaving her less fulfilled than before, and with each failed attempt, her heart hardens until she becomes used up, depleted, and lonely. She will want to shift the blame for her situation on everything and everyone. Inside, she rots away until nothing is left of her except a hard outer exterior and a ferocious appetite to satisfy her hunger for justification, vengeance, and her short-sighted agenda. 

This woman will do anything to fortify her mission. They will devour you and not look back in guilt at all. Take a moment and think about a genuine alligator. It might look safe. It might seem there is no danger. But a woman whose personality is that of an alligator is unpredictable. Her motives are not pure. She is desperate to fulfill her agenda and might not even know she operates with the wrong motives. If you confront her, she will deny it and shift the blame to you, someone else, or some other circumstance. She can live in denial and deception with herself and others. She will attack when least expected, and if you are not aware and careful, you will not survive.

You might ask if there is hope for an alligator. 

The answer is a resolute YES! It will be hard work. It will be challenging to face all of the pain, woundedness, and issues that have caused her to become an alligator. She must be willing to be completely honest with God, herself, and others. Her first step in being honest with God will be to admit to Him that she has made a mess of her life as she has tried to control it herself. This step is difficult but crucial. It is a balancing act. She must seek guidance from someone who genuinely walks with our God. The person she has asked to help her needs to point her to the Word of God and the relationship she needs to develop with her Abba, God. She must learn to see herself as her God has designed her to be without condemning herself.

As she progresses, she will come to the place where she will need to seek forgiveness from others she has wounded in her life. This will also be a painful step that must be bathed in prayer. The timing will need to be God’s perfect time. She need not rehearse the entire events but simply ask forgiveness for the wrong that she has done. The best advice is to seek her Godly friend’s guidance to pray for her and help her know precisely what she might say. She can receive the healing of her woundedness and strongholds to become the rose that God has always intended for her to be.