Susan Landry read a beautiful book for us in her devotional message on Wednesday. It’s a children’s book called, “The Old Woman Who Named Things,” and it is just the sweetest and most heartbreaking little book I’ve read in a long time. Makes me cry even thinking about it. If you didn’t get a chance to listen to the story yet, go to the Pine Grove YouTube page and give it a listen.

The story talks about loneliness, and I know that’s something we all can relate to. Someone was telling me this week that she has a 30-something year old relative, who is single and lives alone and works from home, that went a full 10 months without seeing another human being during the last year because of the pandemic. 10 whole months alone…brutal. I really feel for people who have been in that situation this year, those of us who live with other people can really have no way of truly fathoming that kind of isolation. Several years ago now I had informally surveyed many of the women at church and every single woman I talked to told me that they felt lonely and that they didn’t have close friendships. So sad, I remember thinking, that we’re all lonely together when we could be together and not lonely. But it’s so hard to make friends as adults, to have an opportunity to really get to know someone is hard when we’ve all got different responsibilities pulling us in different directions. And now over the last year we haven’t even had the opportunity to try and develop friendships so we’re not even lonely together- we’re lonely apart!

When I worked at Target we used to do a thing called “Admin Shuffle” where all of the Administrative Assistants within the merchandising pyramid would get paired with another random assistant each month. Then when you found out who you were paired with you were supposed to get together for a coffee and chat for 30 minutes. Chat about whatever- work, home, hobbies, etc. It was really fun to meet with a random individual who you might not normally think you’d enjoy and then spend 30 minutes with them and find common interest. I made a lot of friends with people who I never would have approached on my own. I always thought that would be kind of fun to do at church, and I mean, we all know each other but I think many of us would realize that we’ve got more in common with others at church if we were given the opportunity to find those commonalities. I think many of us craving friendship could find it, if the opportunity arose.

Anyways, to those of you reading this that are lonely- and I know there are lots of you- remember that you’re not alone. I’m saying a prayer as I send this to those of you who are craving togetherness and community and friendship. And hey, if you’re lonely let me know and maybe we can get together sometime and we can both be less lonely for a little bit.