For the One Feeling Alone: A 5-Day, FREE Email Course

This is for you, feeling alone even when you’re surrounded by other people. This is for the introvert keen on deep friendships but second-guessing her own merit. This is for those new to town, missing home, starting over. This is for the long-time homeowner who knows fewer than five neighbors by name. This is for lonely Christians longing for something to shift.

Loneliness looks like silence instead of solidarity. Quietness instead of companionship. Withdrawal instead of warmth. It follows you around, even when other people are near. Tells you you don’t matter or you’re too much. 

It’s not something you can just shake off. Loneliness is more than a narrative you can reframe, a lie you can stop believing, or a reality you can rewind.

But there is a solution.

What if the relational depth you crave is right within reach? Imagine your life with friends who get you and pray with you and encourage you to grow more Christ-like. Picture yourself with unshakeable faith, engaging in free-flowing conversation with God.

I believe with all my heart that it’s God’s heart for you, because He wired community and koinonia right into our DNA. As Jennie Allen writes, “Our God has been relational forever. It means that He created us out of relationship for relationship.” 

Koinonia is the epitome of relational fullness, evidenced in the early church and still available to us today. It’s life-on-life accentuated by shared fellowship with Christ. When our relationship with God and our relationships with each other are strong, indescribable depth occurs.

The Overlap of Friendship and Faith

Often we tend to these relationships in isolation, however. We focus on faith, or we hone our friendship-building skills, but as separate items on our personal development list. 

We retreat to a secret place with God, and indeed, this is special, irreplaceable time that teaches us to trust Him. Our efforts to be the sort of people we hope to find in our friends are likewise commendable and necessary. We’re doing diligent work, and it shows.

But we are still lonely.

Underneath the good things bearing fruit in our lives is a residual ache. We long for face-to-face friends who see the underside of our faith:

• The ways we cling to God’s promises when nothing else is certain.
• The apologies we offer in humility when it’s us at fault.
• The imperfect ways we reflect an infinitely-perfect God.
• The tensions we work through when we don’t understand God’s timing.
• The lessons we’re slowly learning, and re-learning.

And yet, we shy away from the non-curated realness we desire in our relationships. We keep our faith private and the smallness we feel inside out of sight. We tell our testimonies with tidy bows–and a buffer between us and our insecurity and fail-ability. 

What if we, instead, leaned into the overlap of friendship and faith? If we grew our relationship with God alongside our relationships with others, not prettying up the imperfect, but pursuing humility and vulnerability in every area of our lives? If we let our relationship with God and our relationships with others grow root systems in tandem?

Real Christians aren’t perfect. They’re growing. Slowly maturing. Gradually adopting Christ-like wisdom, words, and ways.

Friendships, too, deepen with time and intention. With patience and presence. With trust and transparency.

The Sweet Spot

What happens when we show only our Sunday-scrubbed persona is that few can relate. We each know the inner tangles and necessitated repentance inside us, but when we disallow others to see how God is molding us, we keep others at arm’s distance. 

Similarly, if we pressure ourselves to become perfect on our own, build our small-talk skills, and find friends, we forget that God cares about our friendships. He wants us to come to Him with our worries and requests.

The truth is that we don’t have to wait until our faith walk is less rocky before we can have healthy, soul-fulfilling friendships. We can grow closer to God while we grow our friendships. Strengthen our friendships while we’re becoming more Christ-like.

Deep faith and deep friendships lie on the same trajectory. We short-circuit our faith when we separate our relationship with God from our relationships with others. And we accidentally sabotage our friendships when we keep our burgeoning faith out of sight.

The sweet spot is when the things God is working on within you ripple into your other relationships. 

Rather than keeping your faith quiet, let it gently infiltrate your conversations. 

Instead of religiously managing your impression, focus on making God’s name great.

Rather than masking your insecurity or social anxiety, unmask. Open up about where you need God to re-route you, unroot lies that don’t align with His Word, and remind you of His faithfulness.

A Free, 5-Day Email Course to Shift Your Trajectory

Overcoming our hesitation to bring our honest selves to our faith and our friendships will take practice. But what’s on the horizon for you is faith that creates a ripple effect, friendships with people right in front of you, and the assurance that God is up to something good in your life.

To help you bring together your growing faith and desire for deep friendships, I created a trajectory-shifting, self-paced email course, called Turn Your Loneliness Into Ripple-Effect Faith in 5 Days. This is me, personally inviting you to take five days to set habits that have the power to change your life. Your faith. Your relationships.

There is no cost, so you’ve got nothing to lose. Will you join me? Simply share the best email address for me to send the first lesson, and let’s get started!

A Prayer for the One Feeling Alone

Here’s what I’m praying for you as you begin.

Jesus, meet my friend in the deep places of longing, in the endless waiting, in the ache for solid, soul-deep friendships. You see her loneliness. You see HER.

Gently, and with Your characteristic kindness, begin to dismantle the walls that keep her from closeness with You and community with people near her. 

Grant her the grace to step into humility and vulnerability. 

Help her to grow her faith alongside her friendships.

May she find the sweet spot of the work You are doing inside her rippling into her relationships.

In Your name I pray, Lord. Amen.

Just a friend over here in your corner,

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What if you gave your faith the chance to ripple right into your neighborhood? These quick tips provide a wide variety of baby steps to help you begin to build friendships with your neighbors. When we get close to God and let others get close to us, the things God is working out in us can show.

P.S. Prefer the audio? Listen to The Uncommon Normal podcast for the same weekly content! Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or listen to the latest episodes right here!