Saturday was busy with a baby photoshoot and a trip to Gospel Text, but Sunday is where all my thinking happened.
Pastor Marc has been doing a series about sharing your
faith. Last week was about loving your enemies, this week was about
relationships. You might wonder “What do relationships have to do with sharing
your faith?” Well in most cases, people who you have relationships with are
more likely to listen to how you live, than just the words you say. Someone
whom you do life with is going to see Jesus in you, in the way you interact
with others, in the places you spend your free time, in the way you love
others. He spoke about how we need
relationships, even in the church. You can come to church every week, sit in
the same pew, say hi Mrs. Handsor behind you who’s surviving cancer as we speak,
and the Shields in row in front of you and you babble on about their newest
granddaughter on the way, but do you really know them? Do they really know you?
You can be busy all week long, chatting with people you work with, passing
people in the grocery store you know from school, you can be around people all
week and yet still feel so lonely.
This struck a chord with me. The rest of the weekend, as my
computer scrolled through pictures of my life, I realized how blessed I have
been to have the friends and family that I have; to have the close
relationships with some pretty amazing people.
However, right now in my life, despite my busyness every weekend, I’m
lonely. I have Nick to come home to and
to do life with, but I don’t have any of those deep close friendships right
now. The way our schedules are, it’s really hard to commit to anything at
church beyond choir and even that just got harder to commit to because practice
just went from 7pm to 6:30pm and I work til 7 on Wednesdays. We are just having such a hard time getting
involved to the point of growing new friends.
I'm blessed enough to know what deep meaningful relationships feel like, and hopefully soon some of the changes in our lives might bring me a new God-lover of a woman to have that with again. I have prayed for years before for God to bring me a friend and he brought me Mel, so I know that He hears my prayers.
It's a really tough spot to be in-- I'm in a similar boat. Not so much lack of friends, but lack of quality friends-- deep relationships with people who share the same values that I do (I have a couple of those, even-- but no one who lives close by to hang out with!) Know that I am praying for you!!
ReplyDeleteYesterday I started my first Beth Moore Bible study, and in her intro teaching session she talks about the way God uses famine in our lives to draw us near to Him and do a great work in us. She mentioned her "famine of the soul" and then talked about a friend of hers who was having a "famine of friends." Months later, that friend said, "I just wanted a good friend and now I'm hosting 4 different small groups a week!"
ReplyDeleteThis wasn't to say you should host 4 groups, but just that I was thinking of you and thought it was a good way of putting the struggle you're having. a famine of friends. Draw near to Jesus, Britt. He will provide.
Love you.