The Connection Section

I'm so excited about focusing more on "connection" in 2020!  ❤  From the beginning when God declared: "It is not good for the man to be alone" up to today, people have needed love, support, and community.  We all want to love others and to be loved, to listen well and to feel heard and valued when we speak.  We want to laugh and have fun with people, and we want to feel confident that we won't be alone in the most difficult seasons of our lives!  These are normal, healthy, God-planted desires... and it's good to acknowledge them and to work to create stronger connections with those we love.

*I'm reading Shasta Nelson's book Frientimacy through the month of January.  One chapter in, and I already have several highlights and thoughts I want to share.  So I've added a "Connection" tab at the top of this blog.  And my new mini-goal this year is to write a weekly post centering on that subject. =)

This = my favorite quote from Chapter 1:

"Loneliness is subjective, and it's not the same as being alone... Just because I'm not malnourished doesn't mean that I don't regularly feel hunger - and that certainly doesn't mean I don't need to respond to my hunger.  Likewise with our loneliness: Just because we aren't extremely (chronically) lonely doesn't mean we don't experience loneliness.  We do, and we need to respond to it, because the reality is that many of us are far more disconnected from intimacy than we want to be."

One of my favorite scenes (and there were so many fantastic moments) in the new Little Women movie is when, after the sister she was closest to dies and her older sister gets married, Jo is feeling conflicted about whether she wants to settle for a marriage she knows is not quite right for her and venting to her Mom about how women are undervalued, saying:  "Women, they have minds and they have souls, as well as just hearts.  And they've got ambition and they've got talent, as well as just beauty.  I'm so sick of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for.  I'M SO SICK OF IT!  ...But I'm so lonely."

Mmmm, I feel her on all that!  And I'm learning more and more that loneliness is a human thing -- children, parents, singles, and couples -- all people will feel loneliness from time to time.  No one is immune.  So we don't need to minimize that need or feel ashamed of it, (nor should we let it make us desperate enough to settle for something we know isn't relationally healthy for us).  We do need to acknowledge how we're feeling and be willing to communicate and take the first step to initiate more healthy connection when we feel that need arise.  *I'm an introverty introvert who really enjoys my alone time these days, but I also love rich conversations, and I'm very aware of it when I've been alone for too long.  So it's good to be self-aware and know the right balance for you.

Anyway, that's all I've got for now.  Just some encouragement to realize you're not alone in feeling disconnected at times... and to reach out if you're feeling lonely... and to ask for what you need. =)  Happy Friday, friends!!