Replacing Loneliness with Fellowship

 

    In a world where we are so incredibly connected, it’s shockingly easy to feel lonely. I honestly think that, because it’s so easy to connect with people through social media, we have become disenchanted with spending time with people face-to-face, which is what is leading to an overwhelming feeling of loneliness for many people.

I teach high schoolers. While I will admit that I have a strong affinity for my phone- I’m working on being less engaged with it!- my students are struggling with genuine addictions. I’m certain that, in a few years, our addiction counseling services at school will include screen and social media addiction treatments. My students are constantly connected- with their friends, with their family, with the musicians and actors they like, with people that they only know through Snapchat or TikTok. Yet, when we survey our students each year to find out how they’re feeling about our school community, the numbers indicate that they feel strongly disconnected. The disconnect is in real life- they don’t feel like they have a community within our school where they are seen and heard. Do I think some of the responsibility in this falls on us as educators? Sure, absolutely. I know there are kids in my class that genuinely want someone who cares about them to relate to, face-to-face, day in and day out. But I also believe that some of this has to do with the fact that my students are so buried behind their screens that they wouldn’t see a community to be a part of if it was dancing naked in front of them. Truthfully, other than the naked part, it is right in front of them, but they’re too addicted to their phones to put them down and look around for it.

This is the same for adults. There’s this joke that seems to permeate social media that as you get older, all you want to do is stay home and be comfy. I know from experience that this is a glorious life. But when I think back to my childhood, I don’t think this has anything to do with getting older, per say. My parents certainly didn’t spend tons and tons of time going out with friends and leaving me and my brother behind- they spent tons of time carting us to sports practices and dance class. But I also do not remember them just staying home all the time like my generation loves to do. I think the ease of connecting with people through our devices has made it easier to put off getting together, so we’ve unwittingly isolated ourselves from our people- even those who we have spent countless hours with before we got so cozy with our screens.

It’s no wonder we are experiencing depression and anxiety at crisis levels in our society. We are stuck in this cycle of false connection and true loneliness, and even if we try to dig ourselves out to seek connection, everyone around us is stuck in the same cycle.

Experiencing a trauma like infertility and loss only adds salt to these wounds. These hurts can feel utterly isolating because they have remained so taboo in our culture for far too long. Just this morning, I was reading a post on social media about the “12 week rule.” We all know it- don’t tell anyone you’re pregnant until 12 weeks, when it’s “safe,” that way if you have a miscarriage, you won’t have to suffer through telling people what happened. I fully support, on a personal level, telling people when YOU feel ready to tell people. On a societal level, though, there is so much wrong with this rule. I truly believe it’s there for other people, not for the mom who has lost their child. We’re uncomfortable talking about these things because the narrative that has been pumped into us since middle school is, “You better be safe cause you’ll for sure get pregnant and end up with a baby if you ever have sex even one time!!” Turns out, it’s not that easy to get pregnant or stay pregnant, but no one wants to talk about that. So we tell women not to share their pregnancies until it’s “safe” so that other people don’t have to hear about that trauma. Not to mention, nothing is ever really “safe.” Just ask the countless mamas who have a baby born at term who they didn’t get to take home. The same is true of infertility- we don’t want to hear about the medical, non-intimate ways so many people have to endure to make a baby, and we definitely don’t want to hear about it if it doesn’t work out. So we keep our journey through fertility treatments close to our chests, to save other people the pain of hearing about our failures.

The irony is, when we do feel brave or rebellious about sharing, we inevitably find someone who says, “Me too.” Because this club is huge. In our anxiety, we silence ourselves to protect ourselves and others, leaving us feeling like no one understands what we’re going through. But it ultimately isolates us from the people who truly understand our experience. It prevents us from finding the community we need, the ones who help us know we’re not alone.

My exploration of what Scripture has to say about fellowship led me two places; the first was looking at the word “fellowship” and the second was looking at the word “community.” Because, truthfully, we don’t have one without the other.

The idea of “community” is introduced early in Scripture: Genesis 28. First, a little refresher on the genealogy of the patriarchs:

Abraham received a promise from God that his descendants would be as countless as grains of sand, and that they would inhabit the Promised Land.

Abraham’s son was Isaac.

Isaac had twin sons: Jacob and Esau.

Jacob, who God eventually renamed Israel, became the father of the 12 tribes of Israel through his 12 sons, including Joseph.

Genesis 28 finds us near the end of Isaac’s life, after he has unwittingly given the blessing of the first born to Jacob, the younger of the twins (I think we looked at that story in another post). Isaac gives Jacob an additional (unspecified) blessing at the beginning of this chapter, and then commands Jacob not to marry a Canaanite woman. I think we’ve discussed before that the Canaanites were the pagan people that the patriarchs and their families lived among, and there was a real concern that intermarrying with them would lead to straying from God. So Isaac directs Jacob to go to his uncle Laban to find a wife.

Then Isaac prays over Jacob: “May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples” (Genesis 28:3 NIV). He also prays that this community will take possession of the land that God gave to Abraham (Isaac’s father, Jacob’s grandfather). So Jacob goes to Laban seeking a wife to begin this process of fruitfulness and community-making.

What’s crazy is that, at the time I’m writing this, I have recently posted a mini devotion about this same verse, focusing on the concept of fruitfulness. If you’re anything like me, that direction from God to be fruitful can sting, as we have tried almost everything to obey when we’re facing infertility. But I’ve shared this before- fruitfulness doesn’t have to be biological, because when push comes to shove, God wants us to be fruitful for his Kingdom, growing the community of believers. This is what Isaac is really praying for- that the truth of the one, true God will spread.

Later in Genesis 48, we have flashed forward a generation. Jacob is now at the end of his life and seeking to bless Joseph and his two grandsons, Manasseh and Ephraim. Jacob tells Joseph, “God Almighty appeared to me … and there he blessed me and said to me, ‘I am going to make you fruitful and increase your numbers. I will make you a community of peoples, and I will give this land as an everlasting possession to your descendants after you’” (Genesis 48:4 NIV). Essentially, God confirmed Isaac’s prayer over Jacob, saying that He would be the one to do this for Jacob and his descendants! As we continue reading, we see that the 12 sons of Jacob multiply with incredibly fruitfulness, growing into the nation of Israel.

The definition that struck me most for the word “community” used in these two verses is “company of returning exiles.” In terms of the Scripture story, the tribes end up exiled in Egypt and ultimately return to the Promised Land 400+ years later. But I couldn’t help thinking about the feeling of isolation that comes with pregnancy loss and infertility. It can truly feel like an exile. While we watch our friends easily have babies, the way it seems nature intended, we’re trapped in this nightmare of fear, disappointment, and betrayal by our own bodies. But even in exile, we’re in good company- the matriarchs of this eventual nation: Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah? They are all in this club with us, ladies. Yet they found their community- God gave it to them.

So once we find our community, what does “fellowship” look like? Paul’s letters give us some good pictures.

In 1 Corinthians, Paul gives thanks for this community because they have received the grace of Jesus. They have grown in their speech and knowledge of the gospel, and God has confirmed their testimonies. As a group, they are not lacking in any spiritual gifts, and so God will help them stay firm in their faith because He is faithful. He is the one who has called them to fellowship with Jesus (1:9 NIV).

God wants us to find our people because this is part of the gift of His grace! He knows we will face hardships, so He has ensured that we won’t have to do it alone. When we fellowship with others, we will be able to grow in our relationship with Him and this is how we will develop the knowledge to share our stories with others. We will compliment one another with a variety of gifts so that we can help each other stay firm in our faith just as God is helping us. Our fellowship with others works in tandem with our fellowship with Jesus, enabling us to encourage each other no matter what we face.

And here’s the thing, we will face struggles. Scripture promises that. But Paul points out to the Philippians that even our communities are not alone in this battle: “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings…” (Philippians 3:10 NIV). We don’t have to wonder in our humanness how to face these struggles. We have fellowship with Jesus in suffering, as the KJV translates it. He knows what it’s like to face trauma, so He will not abandon us when we have to face our own, even within a community. Jesus is the example for how we can journey through that suffering, and when we fellowship with others in that suffering, we can all encourage each other to follow His example.

The Greek word used in these two verses is “koinonia” and among its definitions are: “joint participation, intimate bond that unites Christians, fellowship of Christians with God and Christ.” If nothing else, Jesus and God are our community. They have joint participation in our sufferings, an intimate bond that ties us to Them for eternity.

We cannot let society’s squeamishness over loss and infertility stop us from finding our community and fellowshipping within it. Follow the Holy Spirit’s leading when it comes to sharing your suffering- only you know when you are ready. But when you are, replacing loneliness with fellowship allows us to find those who have a shared experience, so that we know we’re not alone and can find joy in community. And never forget that even before you are ready to take this step, you still have community with God and Jesus. There is always joy with Them.