Who do you need in your life right now? A friend who invites you over or out to dinner? Someone who takes care of you, pouring into you when you’re in need of support? Someone who makes the first move?

Perhaps you wish it was someone inviting you to an event, a get together, a night out, a play date, a book club, game night, a mom’s group or a Bible study?

Do you need someone to call you and ask how you’re doing?

Do you get lost in your own life, behind your own walls, happy enough to stay home and Netflix the night away but really need someone to invite you out to be in community with others?

Are you an introvert in need of an extrovert friend who chases you down in order to do things with them, even ever so reluctantly?

Do you need an invitation to church in order to take that step to go?

Maybe the holidays are lonely and you wish you had a family or group of friends to feast with?

Do you ever find yourself in a place where you hope and pray but it feels like nothing is changing?

Sometimes there is no invitation, no call, no email, no text, no knock at the door. Yet, the more women I talk to the more I realize that many of us are feeling the same way. The need for community, friendship and care-taking of our souls is a vital aspect of what we need as humans and so many are missing it in their lives.

I think we naturally yearn for others. Even the introverts amongst us need people. We do. We need community so desperately yet for so many women it has become easier to stay home than to find the energy and creativity to reach out. We lie to ourselves thinking connecting on Facebook is enough. We doubt ourselves and our goodness and can easily slip into a routine of stagnant aloneness but all the while, we are hurting and needing such a community of women to care for us.

But perhaps the answer to getting what we need in friendship is that WE must be the ones we need. Maybe if in order to fulfill our own needs, we must instead be the friend that we could really use right now, to someone else.

Reach out. Make a call. Open your home. Send out an invite to read a new book with a group of other women. Invite them over 2 Friday’s a month for the next several months and start your own book club. Mail a card to someone just to let them know you’re thinking of them. Call someone you love. Be the friend who listens. Invite an acquaintance over for coffee one morning next week. Visit someone who’s struggling. Bring her flowers. Bring her dinner. Ask her how you can help. Bake some cookies and deliver them to your neighbor. Whatever you can do to be the one you need, do it. Make the first move.

You may just find that by being the one you need right now, you will be fulfilled in ways you couldn’t have imagined. Or in the ways you needed all along. By giving, you will receive. Be the person you need and one day you might just find yourself amongst a loving community that all came to be because you decided to be the one you needed, when you needed her most.

What Does the Bible Say about friendship?

“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.  Let us not give up meeting, together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another-and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Hebrews 24-25 NIV

“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” 1Thessalonians 5:11 NIV

“Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.” 1 Peter 4:10 NIV

“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up.  But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!  Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.   But how can one keep warm alone?  Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves.  A cord of thee strands is not quickly broken.”  Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 NIV

And in your lonely seasons, when you long for community and friendship, never forget this; Jesus is  your greatest friend.  Through the sparse seasons and the rich, through the hard and the happy times, He is there for you and with you.

“I am the vine; you are the branches.  If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”  John 15:5 NIV

“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13 NIV

You are never alone and you are always, always loved.