Loneliness is on the rise, affecting millions of people across all walks of life—but you don’t have to navigate it alone. In this episode of Faith Fueled Woman, we dive into the root causes of loneliness, the alarming statistics on social isolation, and why meaningful friendships are essential for emotional and spiritual well-being. Discover faith-based strategies to build strong, supportive relationships and cultivate the God-centered community you were created for. Tune in for encouragement, practical steps, and inspiration to step out of isolation and into connection.
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Key Takeaways:
✅ Loneliness is a growing epidemic—1 in 3 Americans report feeling isolated weekly.
✅ Building meaningful friendships takes time, effort, and intentionality.
✅ Chronic loneliness impacts health—comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day!
✅ We are designed for connection—investing in relationships strengthens faith and well-being.
- 🎧 Subscribe now and start building the community and connections you long for!
faith, community, friendship, loneliness, isolation, Christian women, spiritual growth, building community, biblical wisdom, hospitality, faith-filled conversations, deep relationships, mental health, encouragement, meaningful connections, loneliness statistics, support for lonely people, overcoming isolation, thriving in faith, finding your people
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey hey friends and welcomeback to Faithfield Woman.
This is your host, Kristen.
Today we are starting a threepart series on community, friendship
and why so many of us feel alone.
And I can't wait to dive intotoday's episode.
Hey friend, are you cravingdeeper faith, renewed purpose and
more joy in your everyday life?
Welcome to Faith Fueled Womanpodcast that helps Christian women
(00:21):
grow spiritually, pursue God'scalling and embrace the abundant
life he has for you.
I'm Kristin and an encourager,mentor, entrepreneur, wife and mom
here to uplift, equip andinspire you with faith filled conversations
and biblical wisdom.
Subscribe now so you nevermiss an episode and join our Faith
fueled community for more encouragement.
(00:41):
Hey hey friends.
We are going to start a threepart series around community.
We will end up on the end ofthe street Part series talking about
friendship and talking aboutbuilding community partners.
Before we get there, we'regoing to dig into why so many of
us are feeling lonely andisolated and what we can do about
it and why it's so important.
(01:03):
The second part of the serieswe're going to talk about hospitality.
What is biblical hospitalityand why do we need to be more aware
of, you know, our habits, ourpatterns and if we're actually inviting
people in to our lives.
And then finally we will wrapup with friendship and building community
and why we're all called to dothat and why it's so important for
(01:25):
a healthy, vital and a lifewhere we're thriving and Christlike.
So I can't wait to share thisseries with you.
Today we're going to dive intowhat is going on.
Why are the stats onloneliness and isolation so high
and how can we all try to dosomething about that?
(01:46):
First, I want to start offwith a little excerpt from the book
Find you'd People by JennyAllen about loneliness.
She says, I'm convinced a keyreason for our loneliness is that
we give up too easily.
Friendships take time.
A lot of time.
A lot of working it out, a lotof showing up, a lot of cleaning
out closets, a lot of tears, alot of laughter, a lot of food, a
(02:11):
lot of inconvenience.
We give up so easily becauseit's costly, it's messy, it's hard
is hard.
Take a minute, breathe in andaccept that truth.
Okay?
Now hear me.
You can do hard things.
God is with you, in you andfor you.
You, my friend, can show up,you can hurt someone and apologize,
you can be hurt, forgive.
(02:32):
You can choose consistency andinconvenience and the friendship
you will gain will be Worth it.
Oh, I love that.
And later in the series, I'mgoing to share some more of what
Jenny Allen says about findingyour people and building community.
But for day today, I want todig into what are the stats telling
us on loneliness.
Okay, so it says one in threeAmericans feel lonely every week.
(02:55):
That was from a Healthy MindsMonthly association poll or I'm sorry,
monthly poll from January 2024from the American Psychiatric Association.
And it says that.
Let's see, what else.
The Roots of LonelinessProject shares lots of stats and
I want to share a couple ofthem with you.
On loneliness said 52% ofAmericans report feeling lonely.
(03:20):
And these stats I believe arefrom several years ago.
It says 47% of Americansreport relationship with others are
not meaningful.
57% of people that are singleor not in America report eating all
of their meals alone.
Vegas, D.C.
and Denver are three of theloneliest cities in the U.S.
three times above the national average.
(03:43):
South Carolina, it leadssecond for the most singles.
There's 49% of adults andthey're single.
Seriously, the most searchedterm on Google trends is I'm lonely.
80% of people under 18 are lonely.
Sometimes 43% of 17 to 25 yearolds feel lonely and less than half
(04:04):
feel loved.
And actually newer data onthat, it's from a different Source
said from 2023 to 2025, 15 to24 year olds felt lonely in the past
week, 55 to 57% of them.
So the number isn't going down.
It stayed the same or barely.
It just slightly gone up.
(04:25):
Millennials say they are lonely.
73% of millennials say they'relonely at least sometimes.
22% of Gen Xers have feel likethey have no close friends.
And in the US 61% of Gen Zersfeel lonely.
And it said the percentage ofhigh school seniors who were lonely,
(04:47):
well let's see, sorry, in 2012was 26%.
It went up to 39% in 2017.
But imagine the numbers now orsince COVID If it was 39% in 2017,
that number has surely gone up.
And here is a stat.
It says pre Covid, 20% ofpeople struggled with feelings of
(05:09):
loneliness.
During COVID 58.1% of peoplefelt much lonelier.
You guys, these stats are heartbreaking.
I literally started to havetears in my eyes when I was reading
some of these numbers.
And I had heard something lastweek when I was at a one day workshop
in D.C.
and someone said the devilblocks us through isolation.
(05:33):
And let me tell you, we areMore isolated and lonely than ever
now.
True, it's not the same aswhen Covid first happened, right?
That first year and a half,two years, everyone or most everyone
was feeling isolated, andsurely a lot of people were feeling
lonely.
But the thing is, while thosenumbers have improved some in a lot
of the age groups, we arestill feeling lonely, we're feeling
(05:58):
lost, and it's.
It's just a sad and scarything, and we have to do something
about it, both if we're theones feeling lonely, but also we
need to be the people thatbring people in, that make people
not feel lonely.
We can't just stay in ourhouses, Netflix, binging in on social
media thinking because we haveonline friends, that that's the same
(06:20):
as striking up a conversation,inviting somebody in.
We have to break thisloneliness thing.
And here's the thing about it.
The reason I think we feellonely is because we live in such
bigger communities that wedon't always have to get to know
our neighbors.
And we somehow think thatthat's acceptable.
(06:42):
We go in our homes or ourapartments or wherever we live, and
we close the door when we'rewalking down the street or we're
taking transportation or we'redriving in our own cars.
We are self absorbed.
We're absorbed with ourearbuds in, and we're not even noticing
the people on the streets.
And we're definitely not manyof us talking to our neighbors or
(07:04):
talking to our friends thatoften, other than maybe texting,
which is not the same aspeople showing up in our lives.
So what do we do about it?
Well, what we do about it iswe start acknowledging that if we
feel lonely or isolated, we'renot the only ones.
Most of these stats showedthat almost half of people in almost
(07:26):
every age range, everydemographic, every ethnicity, I mean,
the data went on and on, onthis project, the Roots of Loneliness
project, but it's literally47%, excuse me, to 80% for some things,
that some people feel lonelyregularly or some people feel lonely
all the time.
(07:46):
They don't feel like they havethose friends or people they can
rely on.
It is literally a crisis.
And so, you know, suiciderates are up, levels of depression
and mental health are up.
Something's got to give.
And so this first episodeabout building community is to just
(08:08):
set the stage, right?
It's to say this is kind ofthe context of what's going on under
the surface.
This is what's going on behindthe closed doors.
This is what's going on behindour earbuds.
We're lonely and we don't knowhow to fix it.
We're isolated and we don'tknow what to do about it.
(08:29):
I actually met one of thepeople I met last week at the event
that I was at, told me thatthey have been going to their same
church for a very long time.
I mean, a decade, maybe two decades.
And they've been in differentgroups, but they really don't feel
connected or like they haveany close friends at their church.
Right.
I'm sure they haveacquaintances, people they see regularly
(08:51):
there.
And that just broke my heart.
But it's because it does take time.
Much like Jenny Allen'scomment at the beginning, it takes
time.
It takes hard work.
It takes commitment andclocking hours with someone to become
their friend.
And in one of the futureepisodes, we'll talk about the different
levels of getting to know somebody.
(09:12):
And it's good to have peopleat different levels.
It's not that everyone's goingto become our closest friend.
You're only going to have asmall one or two or three or four,
or maybe a little bit morethan that of a close group.
But we all need a couplepeople in our lives that we can count
on, that we can call whenwe're having a hard time, when we're
(09:33):
in crisis, when we want tocelebrate, we need people to rally
around us.
And so one of the things.
Well, one quote.
I'm sorry, one scripture thatI want to share is one that most
of you have probably heard before.
It's Ecclesiastes 4, 9, 12,which is basically just talking about
two is better than one.
(09:54):
So it says two are better thanone because they have a good reward
for their toil.
For if they fall, one willlift up his fellow.
But woe to him who is alonewhen he falls and has not another
to lift him up again.
If two lie together, they willkeep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?
And though a man might prevailagainst one who is alone, two will
(10:15):
withstand him.
A threefold cord is notquickly broken.
This is the thing.
Throughout scripture, it talksabout being in community with other
people, doing a life withother people.
We were designed, for sure,for two things.
One was to be in community, right?
Way back, it might have beencalled a tribe or a village.
(10:38):
We were meant to live in community.
That's how we that's even howanimals, they protect themselves
by being part of a pack orpart of a group or whatever they
might be called.
And humans are the same way.
We can't go through life alone.
And Actually, there was a stat.
Where did I put it?
(10:59):
Hold on.
It was about, what is thedetriment of.
Oh, here it is.
There's actually a real healthimpact to us with experiencing loneliness.
And I'm not talking about onoccasion, I think we've all felt
lonely, lonely or alone whenwe've walked through something, or
maybe if we're struggling in arelationship or going through something
(11:22):
hard.
So that's one thing.
But what I'm talking about isthe longer we experience loneliness
and we don't develop at leasta single or more deep friendship,
it really has profound impactson our health.
So one study said the healtheffect of loneliness is profound
on mortality.
(11:43):
It is similar to smoking 15cigarettes a day, day in and day
out.
People that are lonely, peoplethat don't have a couple, close people
or a close community, theytend to not live as long of lives.
The stats have shown that.
That in the flu zones, thepeople that live the longest have
(12:04):
either a few meaningfulrelationships or they're part of
a group, or they're partvillage or their area where they
do meaningful work.
And they have.
They regularly see people.
So this truly does matter.
And we have got to fix something.
If 80% of people under 18 feellonely sometimes, if 57% of people
(12:29):
18 to 24 years old feellonely, 73% of millennials say they're
lonely.
Guys.
What?
I don't know what we've donewrong, but we've got to fix it.
We have to start reachingacross the aisle, inviting people
in.
We have to start talking toour kids, do more with them.
Even if they tell us no, wehave to try harder.
(12:54):
It seems that we get sofocused on work and all of these
commitments, taking our kids places.
If your kids are younger or ifthey're older, watching and cheering
them on in the activities they do.
Or maybe we're doing so muchvolunteer work, but we're so exhausted
and we're worn out around the edges.
But my question to you is, howmuch of our day or week or month
(13:18):
or year in that decade are wecommitting to developing deep and
meaningful relationships withother people?
Because at the end of the day,at the end of our life, it will not
the amount of hours we clockedor the amount of times that we did
carpool.
And I am surely not sayingthat our work is not important and
(13:38):
that taking our childrenplaces isn't important.
What I'm saying is that cannotbe to the detriment of building community
and developing deepfriendships and deep family connections.
That matters for eternity.
Loving Other people.
Well, matters for eternity.
Working two more hours everyday, working late into the night
(14:01):
and exhausting yourself onwork that will be there tomorrow
is not going to change the world.
It will not change generationsto come, and it will not change the
love that you're putting outin the world.
So we all need to get intentional.
We need to kind of reflect onare we feeling lonely?
(14:23):
Are the people around usseeming lonely?
Are we ignoring the peoplewe're walking by?
Are we ignoring our neighbors?
Are we part of the problem?
Or are we getting brave andwe're asking the Holy Spirit to come
into our day and help us bethe person that says hello, that
helps us be the person thatsays, hey, I'd love to meet you for
(14:47):
coffee or hey, are you free?
I was thinking about having acouple people over.
It means going and joining agroup, doing something new, getting
out of your comfort zone.
And I what I will tell you isif you're feeling lonely, if you're
feeling isolated, the way thatwe get out of that place is by being
(15:08):
a friend to someone else.
It's by being brave enough,putting down the fear or the worry
or the anxiety about doingsomething new or being rejected by
someone and showing the world,turning off our tv, setting down
our our phones, maybe turningthe ringer off and setting foot into
(15:30):
the world in new rooms, in newspaces and new conversations.
That is how we're going tochange this world of loneliness and
despair and hopelessness.
But it's going to happenthrough conversations and connections.
It's not going to specificallyhappen online, and it's surely not
going to happen when we'restaring at our TV or staring at our
(15:52):
smartphone as we're wa for ourdoctor's appointment or waiting in
line at the grocery.
Strike up a conversation, sayhello, look people in the eyes and
smile.
Give them a compliment.
Let people know they're being seen.
Listen to people, give themhugs, even if you barely know them.
(16:12):
Oh, friends.
So this is just the setup forthe next two conversations.
Next, we're going to talkabout hospitality and what that looks
like.
How can we all practicebiblical hospitality?
How can we all have openhearts and open hands?
And then we will wrap up thisseries talking about friendship and
(16:34):
how do we actually makefriends as adults?
How do we allow ourselves tobe vulnerable and build relationships?
So I can't wait for you tojoin me in these next two series.
And listen, if you need someencouragement, you need a little
pep talk, you just need totell somebody, look, I have been
feeling this way.
Reach out my email iskristinristenfitch.com you can message
(16:59):
me on Instagram.
I'm hristenfitch, but I'm herefor you and friends.
I hope that you have someonein your corner, but if you don't,
I'm happy to be that person asyou step through this journey of
getting to know more people inyour community.
Until next time, big hugs, big friends.
If you haven't already signedup to join our email newsletter,
(17:21):
head over to KristinFitch.comand grab that now.
And while you're at it, grabone of our many freebies.
We have a Reignite yourpassion workbook or Create a life
you love workbook.
Both of those you can grab onthe freebies page and I know that
they will help you so much.
Step into a life you love.
Step into a life that's filledwith faith and deep relationships
(17:41):
and meaning.
Thanks again for listening tothe show and if you enjoyed today's
episode, we would love it ifyou could take a minute to leave
a rating and review on Applepodcast because it helps our show
get discovered by more people.
Hey hey friends and welcomeback to Faithfield Woman.
This is your host, Kristen.
Today we are starting a threepart series on community, friendship
and why so many of us feel alone.
And I can't wait to dive intotoday's episode.
Hey friend, are you cravingdeeper faith, renewed purpose and
more joy in your everyday life?
Welcome to Faith Fueled Womanpodcast that helps Christian women
(00:21):
grow spiritually, pursue God'scalling and embrace the abundant
life he has for you.
I'm Kristin and an encourager,mentor, entrepreneur, wife and mom
here to uplift, equip andinspire you with faith filled conversations
and biblical wisdom.
Subscribe now so you nevermiss an episode and join our Faith
fueled community for more encouragement.
(00:41):
Hey hey friends.
We are going to start a threepart series around community.
We will end up on the end ofthe street Part series talking about
friendship and talking aboutbuilding community partners.
Before we get there, we'regoing to dig into why so many of
us are feeling lonely andisolated and what we can do about
it and why it's so important.
(01:03):
The second part of the serieswe're going to talk about hospitality.
What is biblical hospitalityand why do we need to be more aware
of, you know, our habits, ourpatterns and if we're actually inviting
people in to our lives.
And then finally we will wrapup with friendship and building community
and why we're all called to dothat and why it's so important for
(01:25):
a healthy, vital and a lifewhere we're thriving and Christlike.
So I can't wait to share thisseries with you.
Today we're going to dive intowhat is going on.
Why are the stats onloneliness and isolation so high
and how can we all try to dosomething about that?
(01:46):
First, I want to start offwith a little excerpt from the book
Find you'd People by JennyAllen about loneliness.
She says, I'm convinced a keyreason for our loneliness is that
we give up too easily.
Friendships take time.
A lot of time.
A lot of working it out, a lotof showing up, a lot of cleaning
out closets, a lot of tears, alot of laughter, a lot of food, a
(02:11):
lot of inconvenience.
We give up so easily becauseit's costly, it's messy, it's hard
is hard.
Take a minute, breathe in andaccept that truth.
Okay?
Now hear me.
You can do hard things.
God is with you, in you andfor you.
You, my friend, can show up,you can hurt someone and apologize,
you can be hurt, forgive.
(02:32):
You can choose consistency andinconvenience and the friendship
you will gain will be Worth it.
Oh, I love that.
And later in the series, I'mgoing to share some more of what
Jenny Allen says about findingyour people and building community.
But for day today, I want todig into what are the stats telling
us on loneliness.
Okay, so it says one in threeAmericans feel lonely every week.
(02:55):
That was from a Healthy MindsMonthly association poll or I'm sorry,
monthly poll from January 2024from the American Psychiatric Association.
And it says that.
Let's see, what else.
The Roots of LonelinessProject shares lots of stats and
I want to share a couple ofthem with you.
On loneliness said 52% ofAmericans report feeling lonely.
(03:20):
And these stats I believe arefrom several years ago.
It says 47% of Americansreport relationship with others are
not meaningful.
57% of people that are singleor not in America report eating all
of their meals alone.
Vegas, D.C.
and Denver are three of theloneliest cities in the U.S.
three times above the national average.
(03:43):
South Carolina, it leadssecond for the most singles.
There's 49% of adults andthey're single.
Seriously, the most searchedterm on Google trends is I'm lonely.
80% of people under 18 are lonely.
Sometimes 43% of 17 to 25 yearolds feel lonely and less than half
(04:04):
feel loved.
And actually newer data onthat, it's from a different Source
said from 2023 to 2025, 15 to24 year olds felt lonely in the past
week, 55 to 57% of them.
So the number isn't going down.
It stayed the same or barely.
It just slightly gone up.
(04:25):
Millennials say they are lonely.
73% of millennials say they'relonely at least sometimes.
22% of Gen Xers have feel likethey have no close friends.
And in the US 61% of Gen Zersfeel lonely.
And it said the percentage ofhigh school seniors who were lonely,
(04:47):
well let's see, sorry, in 2012was 26%.
It went up to 39% in 2017.
But imagine the numbers now orsince COVID If it was 39% in 2017,
that number has surely gone up.
And here is a stat.
It says pre Covid, 20% ofpeople struggled with feelings of
(05:09):
loneliness.
During COVID 58.1% of peoplefelt much lonelier.
You guys, these stats are heartbreaking.
I literally started to havetears in my eyes when I was reading
some of these numbers.
And I had heard something lastweek when I was at a one day workshop
in D.C.
and someone said the devilblocks us through isolation.
(05:33):
And let me tell you, we areMore isolated and lonely than ever
now.
True, it's not the same aswhen Covid first happened, right?
That first year and a half,two years, everyone or most everyone
was feeling isolated, andsurely a lot of people were feeling
lonely.
But the thing is, while thosenumbers have improved some in a lot
of the age groups, we arestill feeling lonely, we're feeling
(05:58):
lost, and it's.
It's just a sad and scarything, and we have to do something
about it, both if we're theones feeling lonely, but also we
need to be the people thatbring people in, that make people
not feel lonely.
We can't just stay in ourhouses, Netflix, binging in on social
media thinking because we haveonline friends, that that's the same
(06:20):
as striking up a conversation,inviting somebody in.
We have to break thisloneliness thing.
And here's the thing about it.
The reason I think we feellonely is because we live in such
bigger communities that wedon't always have to get to know
our neighbors.
And we somehow think thatthat's acceptable.
(06:42):
We go in our homes or ourapartments or wherever we live, and
we close the door when we'rewalking down the street or we're
taking transportation or we'redriving in our own cars.
We are self absorbed.
We're absorbed with ourearbuds in, and we're not even noticing
the people on the streets.
And we're definitely not manyof us talking to our neighbors or
(07:04):
talking to our friends thatoften, other than maybe texting,
which is not the same aspeople showing up in our lives.
So what do we do about it?
Well, what we do about it iswe start acknowledging that if we
feel lonely or isolated, we'renot the only ones.
Most of these stats showedthat almost half of people in almost
(07:26):
every age range, everydemographic, every ethnicity, I mean,
the data went on and on, onthis project, the Roots of Loneliness
project, but it's literally47%, excuse me, to 80% for some things,
that some people feel lonelyregularly or some people feel lonely
all the time.
(07:46):
They don't feel like they havethose friends or people they can
rely on.
It is literally a crisis.
And so, you know, suiciderates are up, levels of depression
and mental health are up.
Something's got to give.
And so this first episodeabout building community is to just
(08:08):
set the stage, right?
It's to say this is kind ofthe context of what's going on under
the surface.
This is what's going on behindthe closed doors.
This is what's going on behindour earbuds.
We're lonely and we don't knowhow to fix it.
We're isolated and we don'tknow what to do about it.
(08:29):
I actually met one of thepeople I met last week at the event
that I was at, told me thatthey have been going to their same
church for a very long time.
I mean, a decade, maybe two decades.
And they've been in differentgroups, but they really don't feel
connected or like they haveany close friends at their church.
Right.
I'm sure they haveacquaintances, people they see regularly
(08:51):
there.
And that just broke my heart.
But it's because it does take time.
Much like Jenny Allen'scomment at the beginning, it takes
time.
It takes hard work.
It takes commitment andclocking hours with someone to become
their friend.
And in one of the futureepisodes, we'll talk about the different
levels of getting to know somebody.
(09:12):
And it's good to have peopleat different levels.
It's not that everyone's goingto become our closest friend.
You're only going to have asmall one or two or three or four,
or maybe a little bit morethan that of a close group.
But we all need a couplepeople in our lives that we can count
on, that we can call whenwe're having a hard time, when we're
(09:33):
in crisis, when we want tocelebrate, we need people to rally
around us.
And so one of the things.
Well, one quote.
I'm sorry, one scripture thatI want to share is one that most
of you have probably heard before.
It's Ecclesiastes 4, 9, 12,which is basically just talking about
two is better than one.
(09:54):
So it says two are better thanone because they have a good reward
for their toil.
For if they fall, one willlift up his fellow.
But woe to him who is alonewhen he falls and has not another
to lift him up again.
If two lie together, they willkeep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?
And though a man might prevailagainst one who is alone, two will
(10:15):
withstand him.
A threefold cord is notquickly broken.
This is the thing.
Throughout scripture, it talksabout being in community with other
people, doing a life withother people.
We were designed, for sure,for two things.
One was to be in community, right?
Way back, it might have beencalled a tribe or a village.
(10:38):
We were meant to live in community.
That's how we that's even howanimals, they protect themselves
by being part of a pack orpart of a group or whatever they
might be called.
And humans are the same way.
We can't go through life alone.
And Actually, there was a stat.
Where did I put it?
(10:59):
Hold on.
It was about, what is thedetriment of.
Oh, here it is.
There's actually a real healthimpact to us with experiencing loneliness.
And I'm not talking about onoccasion, I think we've all felt
lonely, lonely or alone whenwe've walked through something, or
maybe if we're struggling in arelationship or going through something
(11:22):
hard.
So that's one thing.
But what I'm talking about isthe longer we experience loneliness
and we don't develop at leasta single or more deep friendship,
it really has profound impactson our health.
So one study said the healtheffect of loneliness is profound
on mortality.
(11:43):
It is similar to smoking 15cigarettes a day, day in and day
out.
People that are lonely, peoplethat don't have a couple, close people
or a close community, theytend to not live as long of lives.
The stats have shown that.
That in the flu zones, thepeople that live the longest have
(12:04):
either a few meaningfulrelationships or they're part of
a group, or they're partvillage or their area where they
do meaningful work.
And they have.
They regularly see people.
So this truly does matter.
And we have got to fix something.
If 80% of people under 18 feellonely sometimes, if 57% of people
(12:29):
18 to 24 years old feellonely, 73% of millennials say they're
lonely.
Guys.
What?
I don't know what we've donewrong, but we've got to fix it.
We have to start reachingacross the aisle, inviting people
in.
We have to start talking toour kids, do more with them.
Even if they tell us no, wehave to try harder.
(12:54):
It seems that we get sofocused on work and all of these
commitments, taking our kids places.
If your kids are younger or ifthey're older, watching and cheering
them on in the activities they do.
Or maybe we're doing so muchvolunteer work, but we're so exhausted
and we're worn out around the edges.
But my question to you is, howmuch of our day or week or month
(13:18):
or year in that decade are wecommitting to developing deep and
meaningful relationships withother people?
Because at the end of the day,at the end of our life, it will not
the amount of hours we clockedor the amount of times that we did
carpool.
And I am surely not sayingthat our work is not important and
(13:38):
that taking our childrenplaces isn't important.
What I'm saying is that cannotbe to the detriment of building community
and developing deepfriendships and deep family connections.
That matters for eternity.
Loving Other people.
Well, matters for eternity.
Working two more hours everyday, working late into the night
(14:01):
and exhausting yourself onwork that will be there tomorrow
is not going to change the world.
It will not change generationsto come, and it will not change the
love that you're putting outin the world.
So we all need to get intentional.
We need to kind of reflect onare we feeling lonely?
(14:23):
Are the people around usseeming lonely?
Are we ignoring the peoplewe're walking by?
Are we ignoring our neighbors?
Are we part of the problem?
Or are we getting brave andwe're asking the Holy Spirit to come
into our day and help us bethe person that says hello, that
helps us be the person thatsays, hey, I'd love to meet you for
(14:47):
coffee or hey, are you free?
I was thinking about having acouple people over.
It means going and joining agroup, doing something new, getting
out of your comfort zone.
And I what I will tell you isif you're feeling lonely, if you're
feeling isolated, the way thatwe get out of that place is by being
(15:08):
a friend to someone else.
It's by being brave enough,putting down the fear or the worry
or the anxiety about doingsomething new or being rejected by
someone and showing the world,turning off our tv, setting down
our our phones, maybe turningthe ringer off and setting foot into
(15:30):
the world in new rooms, in newspaces and new conversations.
That is how we're going tochange this world of loneliness and
despair and hopelessness.
But it's going to happenthrough conversations and connections.
It's not going to specificallyhappen online, and it's surely not
going to happen when we'restaring at our TV or staring at our
(15:52):
smartphone as we're wa for ourdoctor's appointment or waiting in
line at the grocery.
Strike up a conversation, sayhello, look people in the eyes and
smile.
Give them a compliment.
Let people know they're being seen.
Listen to people, give themhugs, even if you barely know them.
(16:12):
Oh, friends.
So this is just the setup forthe next two conversations.
Next, we're going to talkabout hospitality and what that looks
like.
How can we all practicebiblical hospitality?
How can we all have openhearts and open hands?
And then we will wrap up thisseries talking about friendship and
(16:34):
how do we actually makefriends as adults?
How do we allow ourselves tobe vulnerable and build relationships?
So I can't wait for you tojoin me in these next two series.
And listen, if you need someencouragement, you need a little
pep talk, you just need totell somebody, look, I have been
feeling this way.
Reach out my email iskristinristenfitch.com you can message
(16:59):
me on Instagram.
I'm hristenfitch, but I'm herefor you and friends.
I hope that you have someonein your corner, but if you don't,
I'm happy to be that person asyou step through this journey of
getting to know more people inyour community.
Until next time, big hugs, big friends.
If you haven't already signedup to join our email newsletter,
(17:21):
head over to KristinFitch.comand grab that now.
And while you're at it, grabone of our many freebies.
We have a Reignite yourpassion workbook or Create a life
you love workbook.
Both of those you can grab onthe freebies page and I know that
they will help you so much.
Step into a life you love.
Step into a life that's filledwith faith and deep relationships
(17:41):
and meaning.
Thanks again for listening tothe show and if you enjoyed today's
episode, we would love it ifyou could take a minute to leave
a rating and review on Applepodcast because it helps our show
get discovered by more people.
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