My Tribe
Out on the playground, playing with my new friend who had just moved to our small town, I began to get anxious. I didn’t want to do it, but my current friend, Sally (name changed) said I had to. I had to tell my new friend that we couldn’t be friends anymore. As I began to tell her that I couldn’t be her friend anymore, I saw her face crumble. I could see the hurt written all over her sweet face. I just couldn’t do it. I told her to forget it. I was going to be her friend and if Sally didn’t like it, too bad.
My new friend and I continued to enjoy our time on the playground, and Sally… well she got over it and accepted a new friend into the flock.
I think about this moment and cringe. I’m so glad I decided to give this new friendship a chance regardless of the flack I would have gotten from my friend. What little time I did have with her (she moved again) was invaluable.
We will have three types of friends in life: friends for a reason, friends for a season and friends for a lifetime. Unknown
Looking back on my life, I have had all three types of friends, and I value all of them. I like to believe that my friends for a reason and friends for a season will always be my friends for a lifetime, even though time and space have separated us. They will always be my friends because at those certain times of my life I needed them. We needed each other.
There were also times in my life when I didn’t have close friends near me. When I got married, I moved away from my close friends to a place where I knew only my husband. I wasn’t sure how to make friends. An article by Hanna Gilland, that I just so happened to read today (I love how God does that!) talked about how in our early life our friends are handed to us. Classmates. Teammates. Roommates. Youth groups. All set up for us. But once we venture into adulthood and away from those friends we are left to seeking new friends on our own. And it’s hard, especially for us introverts.
I do/did have a group of lifetime friends from college who I considered family. They were my lifeline. But soon we all started having children and our once a year gatherings sadly came to an end. Plus, raising two children of my own didn’t give me much time to foster friendships, and I found I was slowly falling into isolation and independence. Yes, I was in a church bible study and mommy and me groups, but I didn’t have a friend that I could invest in and in all honesty, I felt like I had nothing left to give. I gave it all to my family.
But, I found myself saying, “It’s ok. I have my husband. He’s my best friend. And besides, I only need God.”
Because I allowed myself to believe that I only needed God, I actually sank deeper into myself. And the more you sink into yourself, all you can see anymore is yourself. If you remember from reading my blog, Our Fathers, my husband was not emotionally available, so it added to my emotional isolation without me even realizing it.
Ironically, as I look back, my time of emotional disconnection from others corresponded with my time of emotional disconnection with God.
You see, when I try to tell myself all I need is God, I rob myself of connection with others. Stephen Arterburn puts it rather bluntly in his book, Healing is a Choice.
“We were born for connection — it sustains us and heals us. Isolation is the way of the fool. Connection is the way of God.”
There are so many verses in the Bible that talks about community, relationships and connection. God wants us to connect with one another, to be there for each other and to help one another.
“Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another.” Romans 12:15-16
Paul talks about the body of Christ as one body in 1 Corinthians. “There should be no division in the body… its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it.” (I Corinthians 12:25-26)
Even Jesus modeled the importance of connection. He spent time alone with God and time with his disciples. If anyone is going to use the excuse “I only need God” it would be him! But he didn’t live his life that way. Even at his darkest moment, before he was arrested, he prayed on his own, yet he needed his friends near by to watch over him.
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If we were born to be connected why is it so hard to do?
Remember my friend Sally? She tried to keep me from connecting with a new friend. What are the “Sallys” in our life that keep us in isolation?
For many of us, like in Hanna’s article, we just don’t know how to connect with others. We are inexperienced. If that is you, I would like to encourage you to read her article (click on the link above) for some practical steps.
For others, it is our experience that has turned us away from connection. Maybe it was bad connections, betrayal or shame that keeps us from opening our hearts and making ourselves known to another person. Maybe, by isolating, we are able to control our surroundings to keep our heart safe and protected. And, this one might be hard to hear, maybe we have a hard time connecting because our unhealed wounds ooze out and push others away.
Whatever your reason is, I want you to know this to be true.
“God wants you out of hiding and into the arms of a healing community…So when the barriers come down and you reach for connection, you start to experience life as God intended. Although you might be uncomfortable, you start to come alive as you seek deeper levels of connection with those around you. You also experience God’s love. God loves us through others. People become expressions of His love, with skin on…He uses others to mold us into the people He wants us to be. In isolation, our character has little chance to grow.” Stephen Arterburn, Healing is a Choice
As my children got older, I found my emotional tank wasn’t as empty, and I found myself craving connection. I was able to strengthen friendships with those in my life group and parents of my children’s friends. We did social things together, talked about our children and our lives, and just did life together. However, every once in awhile I would feel something missing in my friendships, but it didn’t matter because life was good….
Until it wasn’t.
I am so grateful because during this time of connecting with others, it was also a time of frustration. Not knowing where God was calling me or what my future would look like, I began to seek Him more. It was in this time of questioning, that God used it to not only surround me with community, but also to draw me closer to Him. And I love this part…He did it because He knew what I was going to need. He knew that a storm was coming and He wanted me to be prepared.
He knew that my journey through the wall was coming. And He knew that if I was going to go back into my past in order to move forward in my walk, then I couldn’t do it alone.
“Going back in order to go forward is something we must do in the context of community – with mature friends, a mentor, spiritual director, counselor, or therapist. We need trusted people in our lives…” Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality
The time of facing my wall, (or as I call it, the refiner’s fire) came during a rough part of my marriage. It was time to lean on the community God provided for me. But here was the snag. That something missing in my community was vulnerability. My relationships seemed to operate more on the surface level, but at this time of my life I needed to go deeper. I needed to go to a level of vulnerability.
I hungered and yearned for that deep connection because I so desperately needed it. So I began to think, who did I feel safe with? Who would take the time to sit with me in the darkness?
One stood out to me because she had trusted me with a vulnerable moment of her own. And because of that I trusted her with mine.
And ladies, it only takes one. It takes one person to be brave enough to go there. And can I tell you, it will change everything! It will help you to know who your tribe is. Not everyone is ready to go to that deep level or sit with you in the pit and that is ok. It is not their time. Keep testing the waters. Keep searching.
Mary found herself in a tough spot when she was picked to be the mother of the Messiah. Pregnant and unwed, she was going to face a firing squad of shame arrows. She needed someone who could encourage her, who knew what it was like to be looked upon with shame. She needed her cousin, Elizabeth, who was barren for so long and looked upon with scorn from those around her. She needed someone who had been through the dark and come out on the other side to encourage her, to sit with her, to comfort her. And that’s what she did. She sought out Elizabeth.
“Mary needed to know she wasn’t alone in this, humanly speaking. She had Elizabeth, who believed in her, accepted her, and rejoiced with her at the work of God in her life. Oh, how greatly we all need an Elizabeth, don’t we? A mentor. A confidante. A co-laborer in ministry, whether it is in our home or elsewhere. Someone who believes in us when we stop believing in ourselves. Someone who can remind us what God promised in our darkest hours.” Erica Wiggenhorn, Unexplainable Jesus
I found my Elizabeth. In fact, my one Elizabeth has now turned into a tribe of Elizabeths because I chose to be vulnerable. To take the time to see who would go to a place of being raw and real with me. And it was worth the risk!
My fellow sojourners, you will need a tribe on this journey. And even if it is a small tribe of you and one friend, that is ok. Just make sure you find an Elizabeth.
And please don’t despair if you can’t find that person, because I want to present an option to you. Most churches have a program called Celebrate Recovery. The myth that surrounds this program is that it is only a 12 step program. Having been a part of Celebrate Recovery I can tell you first hand that it is more than that. It is a place to go to heal your hurts, habits and hang-ups. It is a place you can be real, raw and vulnerable in a safe and confidential place. It is a place to find your tribe.
Once you have your tribe, make sure God is the leader. Because…
“Ultimately, God is the One who moves us through the Wall. And with that comes mystery. How and when God takes us through is up to Him. We make choices to trust God, to wait on God, to obey God, to stick with God, to remain faithful when everything in us wants to quit and run. But it is His slow, deep work of transformation in us, not ours.” Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality
As I travel on my journey, I wish I could tell you that staying out of isolation is easy for me now. It’s not. Even though I have a tribe, women I can trust my life with, I still have to make a choice to reach out. My independent streak and feeling like I don’t want to burden others keeps me plodding along on my own. Even now as I write this I struggle with something that I know I should reach out to someone to process it, but instead I open up my journal and write it down for God only. What can I say…I’m a work in progress.
The struggle is real. To break those strongholds and inner vows, it takes a community. It takes the strength of a community. My prayer is that along our journey, God will equip us with more courage to reach out to each other. To be there for one another. To lift each other up. Let’s be that for each other.
I love what Lynn Hybels says about her journey out of isolation, so I want to leave you with this.
“The best thing I ever did was tiptoe out of isolation and join the circle of women. We need to choose to believe we are all in this together. We need to accept and honor our own lives so we can accept and honor each other’s lives. When we do this, when we help one another, cheer one another on, call one another to our truest and highest selves, we become a powerful force for good – for God – in this world.” Lynn Hybels, Nice Girls Don’t Change the World
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