Connect - ing

This is meant as something to resolve, not a gripe session.

Growing up in Seal Beach, well, no...let me rephrase that...as a young Christian adult there...I had a circle of friends that were great. Mostly young women like myself, there was something we each brought to the table of friendship...honesty, kindness, compassion, grace, joy...I could go on and on! Several of us got together weekly for accountability, but the best times were when we would stay up late, bearing out hearts, or sharing our faults, and encourage each other to grow to be more like Jesus. There are a few of us left...scattered as we are...married, divorced, broken, hurt and restored. We are bound in great ways...both by the memories of who God started with and the ways He has changed us, as well as the hours spent in prayer for each other and the ways He chose to answer those prayers.

Now, what I'm going to share is not ONLY in the Christian faith...I've met women of no faith, denominations within the Christian faith, and other religions all together (Mormon, Hindu, etc) that are living with the same issue. I don't think it's only women that are having this problem, but I don't spend much time talking to men, so I don't always know what they are thinking (OK, I know THAT shocked you!). :)

We are lonely.

We go to church, volunteer, join community groups, help in our kids classrooms, talk in the grocery store to anyone who will listen, call new friends in hope of building relationships, reach out to those hurting and in need. Some of us work "real" jobs, some work at home, some stay at home to accommodate families.

All of us feel completely alone in a room full of people. Most of us know people, but long to know people deeper, real-er, in a more genuine way. We want to be completely honest, in a loving kind way. We want to be accepted, warts and all, and we want to love others, warts and all.

So why is it that we can't do this?? It's as if everyone is pointing at us, stating that we are weird, foreigners, that we don't belong. YET THERE ARE SO MANY OF US!! Slowly we run into each other...and we do connect...but slowly we are (as a society "we") forgetting how to connect. We are losing the ability to fellowship...share each other's burdens....how to have fun together...

Somehow there must be an answer to all of this, and I KNOW that Jesus is in the midst of it all. Oh, to take it all to Him in prayer....