I prayed for community and God gave me more

I sit here this afternoon writing, after a morning filled with community, relationships, laughter, gratitude, and conversations with fellow moms. Tonight I’m heading to bible study, where I’ll get two hours to be in community with incredible women from all walks of life as we talk about our main man, Jesus, and enjoy each other’s company. I feel so blessed to have great friendships in this season of life, but I’m getting ahead of myself. We need to back up about about a year and a half, to the the fall of 2022. It was then that I felt a deep sense of loneliness and I prayed tirelessly for a community. In that year and a half, God did what He always does – He answered my prayer in HIS timing and in HIS way. He didn’t just give me the community I have now. He did more. I can’t wait to tell you about it.

Alright, come with me to the end of 2022 where my story starts. I told you that I was really really lonely during this time. Of course I had my husband with me, but we moved about 6 hours away from our family and friends, and I rarely saw a familiar face in our new city. On top of that, we just had our first baby, and I entered into my role as a stay at home mom, which is a type of lonely I didn’t know existed. The title of “stay at home mom” was sooo accurate for me, because I really did literally stay at home a lot. Weeks would go by that I didn’t have a face to face conversation with another adult other than my husband. I felt isolated and alone.

As I mentioned, during this time I prayed hard for a community and friendships, and God answered, just not how I thought He would. Weeks into this prayer, I heard God answer loud and clear. Are you ready for what He said?? It still rocks me to my core every time I think about it. He said two things. First I heard Him say, “I will provide you with friendships after you deepen your friendship with me.” WHEWWWWW. Okay, God, I hear you!!!!!! And then He told me, “There will again be a time when you are physically surrounded by a familiar, rich, loving community of people, but there will never be a time when having that community is more important than having a relationship with me.” WHHHATTT!!! Go OFF, God!!!!!! P.S. for the doubters (jk, but actually) I KNOW those were the words of God because I would neverrrr come up with something that good on my own. That was alllll God!!!!

Hearing these words of absolute WISDOM from God completely shifted my mindset. Instead of focusing my prayers on the lack of community in my life, I focused on the friendship I already had with Jesus. Was I still longing for a community of people here on Earth? Heck yes. And I still prayed for that. Were there days when I felt the loneliness seep deep down in my bones? Absolutely. And the pain was real. But this lack of relationships was no longer what my life revolved around. My relationship with God was my #1 priority. I invested my time into learning more about Him. I opened my Bible more than I ever had in my life. When my loneliness was too much for me to bear on my own, I turned to Him over and over.

Now here we are, the beginning of 2024. I look at my life and see the community of people God has blessed me with. He answered my prayer in that!! But truthfully, He had already answered my prayer in the best way by reminding me that His friendship was the most important friendship I needed. And here’s maybe the best part in all of this. Because I spent so much time in community with God and continue to prioritize that relationship to this day, that has overflowed into my newfound community on Earth. 100% I am a better friend because I have a friend in Jesus. I cherish my relationships like God cherishes me, I seek out new friendships like God seeks me, I find joy in my people like God finds joy in me.

God always always ALWAYS answers our prayers in a way that’s better than what we know. We might not understand what He’s doing right away, or ever in some cases, but He is good and His plan is good, so we can trust that His answers are good. I believe that when we witness God answering our prayers we should remember it and share it as a testimony to how great our God is, so that the next time we give a prayer up to God, we know He’ll answer in His perfect way because we’ve seen Him answer before.