We Need People

 

My heart broke when I saw a post about just needing Jesus and not anyone else. I wondered how broken that person must feel that the people in her life have shown no benefit or blessing to her. I wanted to reply but felt my comments would only be taken as annoying. When someone has signed off on people, the comments made by people aren’t usually received well. 

 

One of the most emerging, in-my-face-type of factors that has grabbed my attention in the pandemic is that isolation is bad for people. Out of good intention or fear, it seems that we are fearful of getting too close to people. I don’t mean the guy that becomes a backpack to the person in front of him in the Starbucks line. He can just take a step back and give everyone a little space. I mean the idea that we don’t/can’t/shouldn’t hug others, welcome them into our spaces, or sit across a cute café table and share an ice cream with a friend or the workspace with a stranger. We fear that which God gave us to hold one another up. My heart breaks for the weary. 

 

In “real life” (I seem to keep referring to non-pandemic life as “real” as if things will ever go back to that way of doing things.), the people of God needed and depended on one another. Well shoot, even non-Christians did that. Sure, there are people that we need to keep our distance from for safety, but the vast majority of people aren’t those people. 

 

Perhaps I am naïve, but I consider myself a rather strong and independent person and even I need people. I need a listening ear. I need a walking buddy. I need someone I can text when I have had a rotten day and let them know I am not perfect, shocker! (Keep your gasps down, I can hear them from over here!) I need help with learning how to do things in life. I need to have people around to watch and see that I am not the only one hustling. I need someone with the permission to push my pause button when I don’t even see that it needs to be pushed. People can be 100% hard sometimes, but we really do need them. 

 

So, to the girl on social media that will likely never read this, I am praying that you meet a few good people that will make you want people in your life again. I pray that God will send quality men and women that will push themselves into your space and prove to you that you are worth being in their lives as well.