New to the Neighborhood: Gospel Hope When You’re Longing for Friendship
I wasn’t the first to arrive to the PTA meeting, but I may have been the newest to the neighborhood. I walked by myself around the booths, trying to decide when I could volunteer at my daughter’s school. Meanwhile, I was hyperaware of all of the unfamiliar faces and conversations that surrounded me, conversations that I wasn’t a part of. Had I ever felt so new before, so out of place, as an adult? I couldn’t think of any other times.
I’m in the middle of a season where I’m new everywhere I go. My daughter’s school, our neighborhood, our church—all filled with people I’ve never met before and friend circles I’m not sure I belong in.
Maybe you too have just moved and are trying to figure out where you belong. Or maybe you’re lonely and in need of friends who will be mutually encouraging. Maybe, as you reflect, you realize that the Lord has filled your life with good friendships, but you’d like to help others feel like they belong too. Whatever season we’re in, we can be encouraged that Scripture speaks to these times when we feel lonely or uncertain about friendship.
And friendship was good . . . at first
If we look at Eve’s life, we see that she was created to be in perfect fellowship with her husband, Adam, and with her God. We can only imagine what the conversations might have been like in the beginning, as the Lord walked with Adam and Eve through the garden of Eden. They were probably filled with transparency, laughter, and feelings of being fully seen and fully known. There was no uncertainty—no fear that the other person had ill intentions or wasn’t going to call back when they said they would.
Isn’t it interesting that loneliness was probably one of the first emotional experiences after the fall? Immediately after Adam and Eve ate from the tree, they hid from the Lord out of fear.[1] When confronted about his sin, Adam shirked total responsibility and put all blame on his wife.[2] Eve’s most important relationships were now fractured, and humanity moved into a new experience of separation and exile.
We reap the unfortunate results daily—in our relationships and in the loneliness we feel as outsiders. While we may not remember when we’re finally comfortable in our communities, it’s painfully obvious when we’re not, as the insecurities and doubt rage wildly. The uncertainty of friendship is challenging, but we see in the beginning—in the good beginning of God’s perfect design—that this isn’t how friendship was created.
Jesus knows our loneliness better than we do
In one of my kids’ favorite books, The Friend Who Forgives, Dan DeWitt retells Peter’s rejection of Christ before the crucifixion through the lens of friendship. To say that Jesus was rejected by the world, by those who didn’t know him, is one thing, but to consider how our Christ was rejected by his earthly friends is quite another. Peter had an opportunity to stand by Christ in his moments of greatest suffering, but instead, he pretended like he didn’t know him, in an effort to save his own life.
When we bring our feelings of loneliness or uncertainty about friendships to the Lord, we can do so confident that Christ has experienced the hardships of friendship to a greater degree. Our concerns or insecurities about friendship are never too small to bring to him.
Peter, the very one who betrayed Jesus, confidently reassures us of this in Scripture: “[Cast] all your anxieties on [God], because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7, emphasis mine). What a beautiful testament to God’s goodness. Even though Peter failed in his friendship to the Lord, he experienced the richness of restoration in a way that allowed him to remind us—thousands of years later—that Christ is our best source of friendship. Peter’s personal experience of the Lord’s friendship led him to boldly testify to others that the Lord is a friend to all who call on him.
We don’t have to carry the burden of loneliness alone; no, Peter invites us to share those burdens with our Lord. When we’re experiencing uncertainty in new spaces and unmet desires for friendship, we can turn to the one who created, modeled, and restored the goodness of friendship.
God has bigger plans for our friendships
“Please, Lord, just give me the strength for the next thirty minutes of this ice cream social,” I prayed. Once again, I was at a school event, and I dreaded the thought of milling about while curious strangers asked me questions and tried to make small talk. I hoped to just survive, but I guess the Lord had other plans. Right as I was about to leave, I saw another woman standing alone with her young daughter. I greeted her without thinking, and the conversation flowed. We exchanged numbers, and a few days later, she stopped by to drop off some freshly picked peaches. It wasn’t a developed friendship, but it was the beginning of one. I could hear the Spirit’s encouragement to my heart that this was an answer to my hurried prayer to simply get through the night. Isn’t it funny how God’s design for us is often so much better than what we had hoped for ourselves?
Perhaps the beauty of the gospel in loneliness looks like Christ drawing near to us when we’re uncertain of where we belong, just so we can know that the fullness of friendship can’t be experienced on this earth. Maybe it looks like a season of being new so that we can find the one person standing alone and know exactly what that feels like—and be the one who invites them into conversation. Or maybe it looks like growing in gratitude for the friendships that we’ve brought with us to this new place.
Life after Eden means that, even though friendship is part of God’s good design, we will at times experience loneliness or awkward relationships. We can lament the challenges of being the new mom in town, knowing our Lord himself experienced loneliness, betrayal, and severed relationships to their fullest extent. And we can do this knowing that he cares for us and our friendships even more than we do.
[1] Genesis 3:10
[2] Genesis 3:12
