Connect

Connect

If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad.

STAYING CONNECTED with one another became even more necessary one spring as we, like much of the country, spent months in isolation. After our initial shock and then settling into a new routine at home, my family and I started to once again look around us and see who needed help. Who was lonely? Who needed encouragement or a friend?

We saw many people that we could reach out to and spent time writing letters and making phone calls to our former neighbor, now living in an elderly apartment complex and unable to have visitors. We made little gifts for friends and neighbors and left them at their front doors. We had video calls with grandparents and game nights online. We wrote words of encouragement up and down our neighborhood sidewalks, all in order to intentionally stay connected with those around us.

It was a difficult season, there is no doubt, but it also was a time of slowing down and connecting with others in ways we wouldn’t have normally when life was so busy. I began to really see and value the way that we need one another and how interconnected our lives really are. When a friend would call and feel overwhelmed, we would listen and lament with them. When someone cried tears of loneliness, we would cry too. We joined in one another’s pain, connected even while being apart physically.

We are all connected in more ways than we realize. God made us this way. We were never meant to go through life alone. We are to suffer with those who suffer and rejoice with those who are rejoicing, just as we hope they would do for us. We were created for community.

Lord, help us to reach out when we are lonely and to look for others who may be in need of encouragement or a friend. Help us to see how connected we are and how we need one another. Amen.

-Kendra

One Good Step: If you are lonely, reach out to a friend, or look for someone around you who may need encouragement and connect with them today.