Pursuing Community as a Single Adult

 Our culture prides itself on independence - on not needing other people. We do everything ourselves and often by ourselves. It's often what we announce to others in our social media posts and face-to-face interactions.

As a single adult, the pressure to be able to do it all sometimes feel unnecessarily high. It's seen of a sing of achieving some level of maturity to live alone. Being able to look after all your needs in every area - work, home, family, etc - is an achievement of sorts that should be announced to the world.

But, it's also lonely. It's hard some days to go home, because it means I won't see anyone, often until the next day. I miss the interaction with people. It makes it hard to take vacation sometimes, because at least if I go to work, I see and interact with people for part of everyday.

There's also been an abundance of news stories, and the studies to back it up, that we are the loneliest generation in history, especially in the western world. We've built lives and created systems that segregate  and isolate us. We've allowed disagreement to drive us apart. We've become too dependent on demographic information about people to determine if we'll communicate or get to know one another.

But this isn't how God designed us to live. God created us to live in community. To know and be known by people. To need each other. To help each other. To get into each other's lives and speak truth - even when it's hard. To encourage, care for, support each other.

And as a single adult, these are even more important, but it also seems like my singleness presents an obstacle to many in the church when it comes to including me. Even though there are some differences in our lives, there are also many things that are similar. Being single is far from the only thing about me that there is to know.

I know it's possible to have community with people whose lives all look very different on the surface. Until a few years ago, I was part of a caregroup, where this kind of community was what we had.

So, how do we do this? What does it look like to pursue community?

It takes us being intentional with our relationships with people. We have to make an effort to connect. And then, we need to actually learn to admit when we have a need and let people help us. We have to choose to invite people into our lives and respond to their invitations for us to come into their lives.

And we need to let it happen with people whose lives may not look completely identical to ours on the surface. That's sometimes where the richest community can happen. 

I was reminded of this last night. I was sitting in Starbucks with a group of women from a Bible study at church. At a glance, we didn't have a lot in common, but we talked and laughed and enjoyed the time together for the evening. And, some of my closest friendships have come from groups exactly like this.

How are you pursuing community?

Are you willing to admit when you need help from someone? And give someone the opportunity to to help us?

Are you willing to be intentional about seeking people out and building relationships with them?

We Can't Rush Through It

 Last week I shared a picture of an Oh Henry chocolate bar on Instagram and Facebook. Someone just scrolling past may have wondered why I put a picture of a chocolate bar there.

In the words with the picture I shared the reason why. I hadn't eaten an Oh Henry bar in years, but I was looking for some chocolate and had picked one up. As I sat in my car waiting for my niece to be done so I could take her home, I ate it. The simple act of eating a chocolate bar brought back a flood of memories.

When I would golf with my Grandma, we would stop at the snack shop after the first nine holes to replenish our snacks and drinks for the second nine. Grandma always wanted the snacks to be something that provide the fuel needed. Oh Henry bars were full of peanut so it was almost always an easy sell to get one. In the heat of summer, we ate it quickly after we bought it.

So, on that day last week, as I ate an Oh Henry bar that would have melted if I didn't eat it quickly, memories of the many hours of time I spent on the golf course with my Grandma came flooding back. Those hours were times of security and peace in the midst of a world that felt anything but that.

It's been almost two years since my Grandma passed away, and many more since she was able to be the person I talked to about stuff, but in that moment last week I missed her a lot.

I missed her presence.

I missed her hugs.

I missed her smile.

I missed her laugh.

I missed the way she listened so intently when you talked to her.

I missed the wisdom she freely shared.

I missed being able to phone her and get her advice on how to lead something in a Bible study.

I missed her prayers.

The pain and sorrow of the loss is still there. It feels different than it did two years ago, but it's still there. And I'm learning that's okay. I've still lived more of my life with my Grandma in it, than I have without her. There's still a person missing in the place she once filled in my life. And I can acknowledge and feel that loss. In fact, I need to.

The challenge is that we don't like those emotions. When they came up last week, it was tempting to try to push them away. To pretend they weren't there.

We want to rush past or push down sorrow, pain, grief. We want a quick timeline for when they will be done. But, that's a problem. It's a journey that we have to walk through, however long it takes.

So, last week, I acknowledged what I was feeling. I let myself feel the sadness. And I reminded myself that it's a loss because I loved my Grandma. And I remembered how so much of what she taught me through her words and actions still lives on in me today.

It reminds me that I need to be intentional about allowing myself space. And also to allow others space for the journey they're on. We can't rush through these. We can't push them away.

The Limitations of our Labels

 Labels.

We use them everywhere in life. They're on items we purchase. They tell us what we need to know about lots of items in our lives - whether it's the ingredients or the use. 

They're usually helpful. And, often, they're necessary.

We also use labels for people. And they can be somewhat helpful in some situations. But. it's easy to take our labels too far with people.

Labels can help us create groups of similar people that may be interested in particular things. They can help us identify who certain groups or classes or events may be most appropriate for or interesting to.

The problems comes when we start using labels as someone's identity. When we take something that may be one of the many things about a person and make the only thing about the person, we use labels wrongly. We use them in a way that causes pain to people when we do this - whether we do this to other people or to ourselves.

I've dealt with this in a couple of specific situations in my life. The first being with the label of being single. It's absolutely true that I am single. It's a label that is factually true. But, I've been in situations where I'm being introduced to new people and the introduction I get essentially boils down to: "This is Tamara. She's single."

In those five words, the person introducing me us using "single" as my identity. Completely ignoring the fact that I'm also a friend, daughter, sister, auntie, ministry leader, etc. Somehow being single is who I am in these words, and it hurts to have my identity boiled down to a label that only describes a part of my life.

While others often take labels and make our identity, we can also do that to ourselves. I know I have. I've written here before about my struggles with anxiety and what it means to life a diagnosis of Social Anxiety Disorder. In that previous sentence, I chose my words carefully. I struggle with anxiety and I have been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. 

In the past, I have made those labels my identity; I used the words "I am an anxious person" to describe myself. It may not seem like a big deal in the moment, but those words change everything in how I think about myself. I don't want anxiety to be my identity.

So, while labels can be helpful, they have limitations. We need to make sure we're not turning them into identities - whether for others or ourselves.