We Need Each Other

We weren't meant to journey through this life alone. We need each other. God created us this way.

I was a retreat with my church last weekend and the theme was about celebrating our place in God's family. Talking about how we all belong. And about our need for one another.

Then we spent Monday night at the women's Bible study I lead talking about the people in our lives. The people we need and the people who need us. Both of these types of people are important in our lives.

In the last couple week this has been more than a topic I heard people talk about or that I discussed in a study with other people. It's something I lived. I was reminded in some very real ways of my need for others in the family of God. And it was confirmed to me the amazing sisters in Christ I'm surrounded by.

People who were there in ways I needed, but couldn't always express.

People who were patient enough to just sit with me.

People who didn't just come in to try to fix things for me, but who really cared about me in the moment.

The more I reflect on this, the more I realize that having this kind of family around us doesn't just happen by accident. Being a part of God's family and having people around that you need and who need you only happens when we do the work to make it happen. We have to be intentional about it.

We have to do the work of finding those people in our lives, of finding a local gathering of believers that we will be a part of, and that we're not going to leave just because we don't like something.

We need to seek out those people we need in our lives and who need us. And we need to build relationships full of grace and forgiveness with them. It's messy to build these relationships with others. But, it's what we need. We need people in the good times and bad times to walk with us, and it won't happen by accident.

Hebrews 10:24-25 says:
"And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another - and all the more as you see the Day approaching."
The writer of Hebrews knew the importance of being a part of the family of God - of having people around to walk through life with you. And he was reminding his readers to keep pursuing it - as they had in the past.

We weren't made to do this alone. We need each other.

Are you a part of a gathering of believers that you're committed to sticking with?

Who are the people in your life that you need? Who needs you? Are you intentionally building these relationships?

Maybe Healing Looks Different Sometimes

I read an article recently that made me think. It related to a very personal experience for me. One I haven't spoken about directly in this format before . . . or really spoken about much to more than a small group of people in my life.

When you live with anxiety, it's not usually a topic of regular discussion. There really seems to be some deep misunderstandings about what it actually means for the person living with it. And, like the article I read says, some of the things that are said by others or suggestions of how to solve the problem are far from helpful. And they assume things that aren't true.

For a while, I've been thinking about what it might actually mean for God to heal someone, and I've been wondering if our definition of healing might be too narrow. We tend to see healing as only having happened if we're completely free of whatever it was we asked God to heal us or another person of. But, what if that's not all it is?

What if healing sometimes means being able to live what most would call a "normal life" while still living with something such as anxiety? What if healing means learning how to live the life God has for you while still having the struggle?

I think that sometimes, it's when we live with the ongoing struggle, but still live life to the full that we're actually living more of the life God created us to live. It makes us more dependent on God to get through each day.

And we need to learn to see this as God healing, as much as being permanently freed from something. Yes, that is what healing can be. But, what if healing also looks like learning to live a life where you're not held back by something like anxiety? It doesn't mean we never have moments of battling with it, but it means we learn to manage it and to deal with it properly in the moments when it begins to rise again.

This doesn't mean we don't pray for complete healing of something. It doesn't mean we don't desire to be completely freed from it. But, sometimes on this side of eternity, we're not going to see things completely made right because we live in a broken world.

Walking into Some Difficult Topics of Discussion

It seems that these weeks on my blog are for taking on the subjects that can be controversial, but that seems to be what comes to mind when I sit down to write these days. And when it's not a post I'm going to write and leave to sit for a couple weeks before it goes live, that means they get written and they actually get shared.

In the last few days, I've seen the same meme coming up on Facebook - posted or liked by multiple people. In the past it wouldn't have bothered me much because I agreed with what it said without question. But, I've been bothered by it these last few days. I'm not sure it's always as cut and dry as this meme makes it out to be anymore.

The meme talks about how if you don't take divorce off the table when you get married you'll end up divorced rather than working things out. That it is as simple as just deciding it's not an option in every situation.

Now, before we go any further, I want to be clear that I'm not saying divorce is something God means to happen in marriage. I believe He created marriage to last. It should be something that is worked on, rather than divorce being the easy way out of problems. Divorce is not God's plan for marriage.

For a long time, I used to think exactly the way that is talked about in the meme from Facebook - that if you just take divorce off the table, you'll end up staying married and working things out instead. I had no question about it. Despite never being married myself I was sure that it was just as simple as deciding divorce was never an option.

Some things that have happened in the lives of others around me have made me think that's not always so cut and dry when it comes to this. Going into marriage thinking it will end isn't the right idea. That's not going to help you to create a marriage that is even beginning to look like God intended for it to look.

But, I also wonder if stating it's never an option, can, in same cases, actually do more harm than good. I'm beginning to wonder if sometimes making it out to be as simple as just deciding it's not an option can put undue pressure on someone to stay when it's not safe - to stay in a situation that's not actually going to get better or be worked on to deal with the problems in it because the one person is unwilling to do the work.

I would say that divorce is never God's plan. And it shouldn't be our first choice. But, I wonder if there are times when we need to remove some of the shame of ending up in the place of it being what is happening, by not declaring that it's as simple as deciding it's not an option. Sometimes, even when you go in to marriage thinking it's not an option, you end up in that place for a variety of reasons.

It's not our place to judge the reasons why someone ended up there. We don't usually know the whole story. We don't know what has gone on that we can't see before something ended up there.

Regardless of our views on this, our job is to love people. And to care about them in their need and their brokenness. It's what we are called to. And I'm wondering if part of doing that is refusing to declare a simple solution to what can be a much more complicated problem.


Since I wrote this post, I've realized that this post is actually being posted 9 years to the day from the first post I ever wrote for here. When I started this blog, I never thought I'd get to this day. But here I am, posting something I'm not sure I ever would have posted when I started writing.