c-o-n-n-e-c-t-i-o-n, pt. I

“When God created Eve, as you recall, he took her straight from Adam’s side. None of us have fully recovered from the surgery. There is an aloneness, an incompleteness that we experience every day of our lives. How often do you feel deeply and truly known? This is our inconsolable longing—to know and to be known. It is our deepest ache, which we feel to be healed only in our union with another…”

Probably the deepest need a woman has is to feel truly known and loved.

When you don’t have this or people in your life that you feel truly “get” you and know you inside and out, there is an aloneness that seems impossible to endure.

I thought I was alone in this, but I’ve heard this lament in being reunited with best friends who have moved away this last week, friends who are in different places and doing new things, but the feeling is the same.

I don’t think there is a woman I know who doesn’t struggle with feeling too “needy.” But it is okay for us to have needs.

There is a reason why women’s emotional needs are called a need. It is not something that can just be brushed underneath the surface. I have found my desire for depth of relationship is a universal cry many of my friends are facing.

The other night as I was realizing the weight of saying goodbye to another close friend, my roommate who entered my life in the exodus of the rest of my close girlfriends, I cried out to god, I am just tired of saying goodbye.

Is this something I just have to accept for the next 10 years? That really until 35 all of the friends I meet my age, peers in my life, will constantly be moving. We are in a state of transition. Is this just something I have to accept until I’m in my mid-30s? How do I reconcile that, God? I asked Him all these questions and more as my heart could not take losing another close friend and one I will soon be saying goodbye to as she gets married.

Then, God brings in the reinforcements.

In the month of November and the first half of December, I have had probably the roughest patch of time all fall semester. On all cylinders because we all know with life that it’s never one thing that is hard that bothers us. If that were the case it wouldn’t feel so overwhelming.

But right as I was really starting to feel alone and extremely sad, I found out Eva was in town.

I told someone that night; Eva always comes in town when I am falling apart. She lives in Amsterdam, so her being her is not a regular thing. She is someone who also was close friends with my close friend/mentor in college, Breck, so Eva and I share a special relationship as well.

I had known she was coming in town and got an email from her weeks before, but things were so busy that it snuck up on me, a pleasant surprise.

Finally, someone who knows the depth of what I’m feeling and I can be all of me with and who knows and understands.

That was a huge godsend.

The next week, I found out two more of my favorite people were coming to town, Brian and Breck! I could not believe it. And they came at the end of a week where I was just feeling drained and seeing them encouraged me so much, I felt loved and more like me again and I was more thirsty for the life I wanted but couldn’t seem to find.

So I made some adjustments that night and decided not to go to a wedding I was supposed to travel to and that decision was the best thing for me and God. The end of the weekend, I was refreshed. I was learning to take care of myself again and desired God again.

They continue to a huge blessing in my life.

The next week, the week of Christmas, I got to hang out with Eva more and then was getting MORE excited cause I’d get to see two of my best friends that week. Kate came in town for Christmas and I got to see Maria this weekend at Jenna Highley’s wedding.

These two reunions once again could not have been timelier. I have found in talking about this with my mentors and pastor, that it is not that I am not in community, after a semester of support raising in Columbia, I have finally found a good balance between staying connected with people from The Rock and still focusing on support raising. And God has brought more relationships into my life that I truly need than I even imagined. The older women He has brought into my life that I’ve met through support raising this semester are keeping me connected with women, connected with God’s word, I’m able to participate in several different communities of people, I have another home group with 20s and 30s my age, God has me in community.

But nothing can compare to the need every woman has for a best friend, where you live. I recently shared this deep desire and how it really was a need for me to have at least a best friend here, and while I know it's not something guaranteed, it is still a deep need and desire to allow me to do all God has for me to do. They reminded me that our goal is holiness, not happiness, and while this is true, my ache remained the same. I know that someday when I go to Africa I will not go with or have best friends there and that this cannot be an expectation, but it doesn't mean it isn't still something I see as a pressing need.

I was starting to think I was just asking for too much or being ridiculous, until I heard all my old friends sharing the same cry.

Oh, it’s not just something I’m experiencing in Columbia because it is a college town and all the people my age have left, but this is a universal struggle.

Just as I’ve been forced to start over with relationships with girls my age and grieve the fact that the close relationships like the ones above, take time…

My friends in other places are also experiencing the same reality.


But when you go for a long time without having those people who see eye to eye with you and know you and love you and “get” you and you feel safe and comfortable with, a lot of lies start creeping in.

This weekend, after the cumulative effect of seeing Eva, Brian and Breck, Kate, and Maria all in a week and a half’s time, I once again have been reminded of my chosenness.

Henri Nouwen speaks of our need to know and feel that we are The Beloved every single day. That knowing we are God’s beloved is a security and state of being that changes everything. And that we live in a world that we have to constantly unmask for all it says about us and even the effects other people can play into this.

Making us feel, no there is nothing special about you. No you are not chosen. No, you are not wanted. I experienced this the other day hanging out with some people and left being like, even though these girls have known me for a couple years, they do not know me.

In Soul Cravings, Erwin McManus says,

"There may be no greater proof of God than the power of community. There may be no greater gift than a place to belong.While it may seem that you're selling out to admit you need people, the irony is that you'll never realy know yourself until you're in a healthy community.

We only truly come to know ourselves in the context of others. The more isolated and disconnected we are, the more shattered and distorted our self-identity."

This is what was beginning to happen. My worth and value and identity as who God made me to be was at a critical place in the absence of this type of community.

I cannot compare the new relationships or situation that was hard the other night to Kate and I who have known each other since we were 13.

Or the 6 and a half years of knowing Breck, who I met my freshman year of college. Or Maria who I also met in that time. Or Eva who I have known for 4 years.

There is feeling and a history and a specialness I will always experience with these people that cannot be bought easily.

This comes through friendships that have weathered storms. Been strengthened through many seasons.

As I was telling Olivia today on the ride back, after Maria and I got up early before church to grab coffee, that nothing can replace that.

Friendships like Kate and Mary or Breck and Eva, these women have seen me at rock bottom. She asked how Maria and I knew each other and I shared about our first small group experience and how that set the tone for our friendship.

There is nothing to hide from one another. She has seen the entire transformation in college as I have in her life.

And with all of these friendships, we continue to learn and grow as people and as a result to continue to learn and grow in our friendship.

I have realized even new best friends that will come in; these people will never be replaced in my life, as I felt so blessed to hear a couple people say that to me this weekend.

To have someone say, I really miss you. There’s no one like you here. Or one of my close friends here who is about to move saying, she’s sad I won’t be in her life everyday anymore.

To have conversations that warm the heart. And to share tears and joy and life and stresses and worries and excitements and new adventures and secret dreams and longings fulfilled. To have intimacy again. I think that is what we are all really desiring. I have new relationships, but they are just that, they are still new.

Henri Nouwen says that in a world that is surrounded by rejections, we have to surround ourselves with people who speak into the chosenness that God has given us.

It is not a selfish thing to want to feel wanted. To want to feel special. Loved. That I matter.

I am so blessed that just as I was starting to question all of this, God answers in the context of community.

Reminds me of who I really am and not to believe the lies I can allow others to affirm about myself.

Today as I was writing about all of this in my journal, I was floored at how God spares no expense to love us.

Yes, these friends all came in town for different reasons, but nonetheless, I got to share time with them at a critical point. He has encouraged my heart and restored my soul by bringing these people back into my life. And helping me not feel so alone. And learning that I am not just the one missing them, but that I am missed and loved.

We love him, because he first loved us. 1 John 4:19