Craving Community

 I miss friends and community
Have you ever been in a season of life where you feel all alone all the time? Have you ever spent countless Friday nights grabbing takeout and heading home to spend the rest of the night with Sammy the Sumsung (Aka TV or Netflix). Ladies, you are not alone. Since last June, in my new venture in California I have spent countless weekends alone, the Hallmark channel is my standing Saturday night date. I get it! Often, I have felt like I am always going to be in this season feeling like I have no close friends around me.
Community is so important and sometimes it is not easy to find it. So, what are we as women to do when we crave community but it’s not currently around us? Here are a few things I have been doing to help me in this time.

1.      Pray that God will bring the right people in my life
Romans 12: 12  says “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” We need to be faithfully praying for community. We need to ask God to guide us to the right community. We need to be actively seeking his will for us in this time. We need to have patience as well, knowing that He knows just what we need at the right time.
2.      Put myself out there

1. John 4:11 says “Dear Friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”  
Girls, we are called to show love to others.  We are called to put ourselves out there and seek out community. God made community for us and he wants us to radiate His love to others. We cannot do what we are called to do if we don’t seek out opportunities to build relationships. We must take risk and look for ways to build community and friendship. I know it can be difficult if you go to a group and they are not inclusive. It can be discouraging and that’s where my third point comes in.
3.      Don’t give up!
 The enemy is waiting for you to give up. One of the biggest tools the enemy uses to get people down is loneliness. The enemy wants you to feel lonely and think that God is not going to provide friends or a good community of people for you. Believe me I have bought into this lie several times and for a month I gave up on community. That month I was completely lonely and felt absolutely defeated.  In 2 Chronicles 15:7 it says “But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded.”
Did you read that? It says we will be rewarded! It doesn’t say when but it says our work will be rewarded. So that means that if you don’t give up on community, God will reward you in time!

Girls, I know it is so easy to want to believe that this season of loneliness and lack of community will last forever, but it won’t. There is a reason for this season. I want you to know I am going through this as I write this. I long for the day when I have a close friend again who is in the same state as me. I long for a text on a Friday asking me to hang out. I get it! Girls! I challenge you to keep praying, keeping putting yourself in new situations and don’t give up!

Written By: Rebeccah