Have you ever felt lonely, disconnected, or like you're doing life on your own?

In a world where we're more connected online than ever before, many women are experiencing deeper levels of loneliness, isolation, and disconnection. Between busy schedules, social media, work, family responsibilities, and the lasting effects of recent years, genuine friendships and meaningful community can feel harder to find than ever.

In this episode, Kristin explores why friendship, belonging, and community are essential to our emotional, spiritual, and physical well being. Drawing from biblical wisdom and real life examples, she shares practical ways to cultivate deeper relationships, strengthen your support system, and create the meaningful connections your heart was designed for.

If you've been longing for deeper friendships, feeling disconnected from others, or wondering how to build stronger community, this episode will encourage you to take the first step toward connection, belonging, and purpose.

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• Why loneliness is affecting so many women today
• The hidden costs of isolation on your faith, health, and happiness
• What the Bible teaches about friendship, community, and belonging
• Simple ways to deepen existing relationships
• How to intentionally create meaningful connections in everyday life
• Why community is essential for resilience, joy, and spiritual growth

Takeaways

• We were created by God for connection, community, and meaningful relationships.
• Loneliness and isolation can negatively impact our emotional, physical, and spiritual health.
• Strong friendships help us navigate challenges and celebrate life's joys.
• Building community requires intentionality, vulnerability, and consistent effort.
• Small actions such as inviting someone for coffee or reaching out to a friend can create lasting connections.
• True belonging comes from being known, supported, and valued by others.
• Healthy community strengthens our faith and helps us live with greater purpose and joy.
• We don't have to wait for community to happen. We can take the first step.

Get the Create a Life You Love Journaling Wokrbook to start being more intentional with your life and schedule here.

Grab the Rewire Your Mind: From Negativity to Joy- download here.

Grab the Joy Rising- Daily Gratitude & Joy Journal here.

Download My Free Joyful Living Devotional: https://kristinfitch.com/devotional

Ready to take your first step towards a more joyful, faith-filled life? Download our Reignite Your Passion Workbook and start living with purpose today!

Other episodes on Friendship and community

Building Meaningful Friendships- listen here.

Created for Connection- listen here.

God created us to live in Community- listen here.

Christian friendship, Christian community, loneliness and faith, how to make friends as an adult, Christian women friendships, finding community, overcoming loneliness, building meaningful relationships, belonging and purpose, Christian women podcast, faith and relationships, deeper friendships, how to find your people, community and connection, Christian encouragement, emotional well being, intentional living, women supporting women, social isolation, building authentic relationships

One of the biggest struggles of today is with the more with more technology, with more devices and more connectedness online, the more so many of us feel isolated or lonely.

Even when we could be, you know, online with tons of people or maybe even we live around a lot of people, but there still feels like there's something missing.

Well, we're going to talk about that today and why building community, having people that you can count on and you can be there for other people makes such a difference and why God's actually telling us to do exactly that.

But so many of us are missing it.

Welcome to Faith Fueled Living, the podcast that equips you to live well spiritually, emotionally, physically and purposefully.

Each week we'll dive into conversations and biblical truths to help you strengthen your faith, pursue meaningful work, hear for your whole self, and live in line with what matters most.

Before I jump into today's episode, I did want to let you know I'm super excited to share with you that this summer I'm going to be inviting you into Joy Camp.

It's an invitation to experience more joy and I'm going to be doing a summer series.

So on the podcast I'm doing several part summer series that's just going to help you welcome more joy into your summer, into your life.

And then also I have a Joy Camp offer I'll be sharing with you as well.

But if you want to make sure to hear all about that, obviously follow the show for more and more and then join my email newsletter.

It'[email protected] I have tons of free workbooks that you can go and grab under my workbook page.

I have a Joy rising daily like a daily check in.

I have a Reignite youe Passion workbook and I have a Rewire your mind.

Lots of good things there.

So go over there, make sure you get signed up to be part of my bigger community.

And I can't wait for you to welcome more joy into your life this summer.

Today my question is what is convenience costing us?

What is the pace of our life costing us and what is our online connectedness costing us?

Because I see real tangible ways that we, many of us often feel lonelier than ever.

Even when we have people that we know or that are around us, we often can feel more isolated than ever.

Especially since COVID And yes, for a lot of us, we've picked back up our lives.

There was something that happened at that time and I think many of us changed our ways, we changed our habits and we never went back to all of them.

And so today we're going to get into why we need to spend the time to create and nurture having connections to create villages or community around us.

And, and why that's really what God called us into.

And it's really the only way that we can get through life.

Because when life throws the hard things at us, if we don't have people that can come around us, that loneliness, that isolation will only build.

And it is just so much harder to walk through that.

And so this, actually, I was prompted by this because I read a story yesterday that, you know, definitely brought me to tears.

So it's somebody I follow.

She's an investigative journalist, Jennifer McGullis, and she shared a guest post by a gentleman named Dan McDone.

But he's basically sharing a story that a gentleman he knew pre Covid, he did like kids after school camps and summer camps.

He had a son that was in the school.

But when Covid happened, he couldn't continue the camps, right, because kids weren't going to school, kids weren't going places.

They told us to keep them home.

So this gentleman, everything that he had, his livelihood was taken away, his interactions were taken away, and he ended up going down.

And first he was isolated, and then he felt despair.

And from there things only got worse for him.

He found himself getting into things he shouldn't have.

He struggled because he didn't make money.

He got into drugs.

Well, anyways, fast forward several years and he ended up passing away.

But basically the writer of this explained that it was because of all these COVID policies, and it was because of the lockdowns and stuff, that it cost this guy his connections, it cost this guy his livelihood, his purpose, which then led him down this path.

Now, I'm not saying that the rest of us end up in that place because of those things that happened.

What I'm saying is when his community was taken away, right, when the village he had prior, when he had no way to feel proud of the work he was doing, it started leading him to things that he was not prior or previously doing.

So I bring all this up to say we need community.

We need people around us to be there for us.

And the only reason I bring up the story is because it kind of hit me.

One, I also struggled with what the lockdowns did to the communities, what it did to businesses.

Now, I was fortunate that I had a good group of friends and we still gathered during COVID even if it was my neighborhood girlfriends.

We walked almost every day.

We would meet every Day because everybody was home.

All the extracurricular activities were canceled.

So I was blessed that I was able to keep having connections with people.

But I know that was a rarity.

Not everyone did that.

But I bring this up to say, what does the Bible tell us about having people around us and doing life with other people?

So let's, let's share a little bit of that first.

And it's this, Galatians 6:2 explains, share each other's burdens and in this way obey the law of Christ.

And God is telling us, right, do life together.

Because the idea is we need to be present with other people and we need to be there for both the celebrating, right, the cheering, but especially for the grief, the loss, the mourning, the difficult seasons.

And what I've learned is we need to know, we need to nurture these relationships.

Because when we go through the hard things, we need those things in place so that we can then count on someone else.

This can be a church family, this can be your neighbors, this can be friends, friends, couple friends or girlfriends that you've developed from other things and you've just built those relationships.

When we don't, then people start to feel like they don't belong.

And as humans, we were designed for belonging.

And so we need people.

And one of the most important things you can do is to build and nurture your relationships.

And over the years, I have seen so often where people say, I'm so busy when I'm blank.

I will, you know, make friendship or spend or, you know, friendship a priority, or I'll, I'll come to the gathering once my kids are older or once work's not so crazy, I'll come, I'll, I'll meet up with you guys.

But that's just a false.

Well, first of all, it's saying that our priority is the work.

And I am certainly not saying that your work isn't your priority.

What I'm saying is we have to learn how to balance these things.

Because if we just worked and we didn't have people around us, would, would it really be worth it?

And I would say no.

I want to share a couple things with you.

Let's see.

Excuse me.

In the book Cultivate by Laura Casey, she's, she's kind of sharing.

So the whole book's a little bit about a grace filled guide to growing an intentional life.

So she's talking about, let's See, this chapter is nourishing the soil, right?

Kind of like our infrastructure, if you will.

But she says this one statement, I want to share it.

She says, well, two things.

Our actions follow the desires of our heart.

And she says, we cultivate what we pay attention to, we grow what we sow.

And we aren't growing this life alone.

But I think a lot of us are trying to go it alone.

I think a lot of us have lost the art of asking.

We've lost the art of inviting, and we've lost the art of being a little pushy.

And I don't mean pushy in a bad way.

What I mean is sometimes you just have to push your way through to go and offer a hand to somebody else, right?

So the pushiness.

What I mean is don't take no for an answer.

Just go do the thing.

Just go be a good friend.

Think about what would I need or want if I was walking through this thing?

And just go do it.

Don't wait always for permission, is what I'm saying.

So in today's episode, what I want to remind you of is the importance of putting time into building relationships, the importance of putting time into community, and the importance of saying what you need and being the person that gives other people what they need.

In the book Just Open the Door by Jen Schmidt, she says something and I want to share with you.

She says, instead of merely being willing to open our door, do we also need to sometimes walk through it and reach out to the people who might not accept our invitation?

Should we go to them if they'll never venture out to us?

Let me be super clear.

I'm not saying that we all have to invite people into our homes.

We.

We can meet people out.

We can, you know, meet them for coffee.

We can meet them at the park.

If our kids are younger, we can meet them for dinner.

We can have them over in the front yard.

There's so many things we can do, but the idea is we have to spend time on a regular basis investing in friendship.

And so the other thing that I kind of love that was talked about in Jen Smith's book is she's talking to friends about, you know, this imitation of having people over.

And some of her friends, they're not as spontaneous, which we totally get, that we're not all that person.

Some of us want the house immaculate, which doesn't always happen, right?

And once we have deeper friendships, we understand that if we have real friends, they don't care that we have clutter or unfolded laundry.

But I love this idea.

So Jen says in her book, one of her friends, Julie, is kind of terrified, right for drop ins.

And she said one way she's learned to handle it is by telling her friends, I'd love for you to pop in, but you need to send me a broom and bra text first.

Enough time to sweep and get fully dressed.

Three cheers for a broom and bra text.

We definitely need to make that a thing and I love that.

It's just, look, go visit your friend, drop by or invite people over, go stop by your friend's house, but just give them a heads up.

We did that for one of our girlfriend's birthdays.

She wasn't making a big plan.

They had a lot going on.

And she said, no, no, no, don't, you don't need to come by.

But then we just decided, you know what, we're just going to come by even if we just dropped something off.

And so then we retexted closer to when we just decided me and a girlfriend, we were going to go over there.

And that time, you know, we said, we're basically stopping in whether you want us to or not, whether it's just to say hello and happy birthday hug.

In that time it was agreed to.

But in that case, instead of just showing up and popping in, we still gave our friend a heads up.

So yes, it was meant to be a surprise.

But at the same time we also want to respect people's, you know, that is, that stresses some people out.

So that's what I want to share there.

There's a book that I highly recommend you getting if you're somebody that wants to deepen your relationships.

It's called the Turquoise Table by Kristen Schell and it's just this beautiful book.

But the idea is that before the book was written, Kristen decided to take a picnic table.

Instead of being in her backyard, she was going to put it in her front yard and she painted it turquoise.

The idea was that if she had a table out front and she invited people, right, friends or new friends, neighbors to her front yard for coffee, for instance, on certain mornings you'd see the table, you'd see them sitting there.

You didn't have to have your house cleaned up, you didn't have to like have a whole thing out back.

You could just have coffee and donuts or you could just have cookies, right?

Or lemonade if it's, you know, later in the day.

But the idea was, is it, it allowed people to connect with each other, to build friendships, engage their communities by just having this Picnic bench in the front, or picnic table and bench in the front yard.

It's just this beautiful story.

She has lots of great stories in her book, but here's what she says.

We're drawn to each other in our stories, and through that experience, oneness.

It's how community is built.

Layer by layer, struggle by struggle, and story by story.

It's why we come to the table.

And these women and I were doing it, and I didn't even have to clean the house.

And then she explains, right, there's a difference between hospitality and entertaining.

And she says, genuine hospitality begins with opening our lives.

It's just as important to open up our lives as it is our homes.

And sharing who we are is far more important than sharing what we bake.

In fact, sharing our hearts is more important than sharing a plate of chocolate chip cookies, though cookies might soften us up to share the pieces of us that are shy.

Hospitality begins in the heart, not the oven.

And then she just says, it all starts with inviting people to come to the table.

Hospitality is always about the people, not the presentation.

That's what the neighbors one straight over on Glenridge Drive found out.

And, you know, I think reading stories like this, reading books like this, it encourages us to do things in our own neighborhood, in our own communities.

Because I think it's very easy to make excuses.

It's very easy to say, I'm too busy right now.

But I would challenge you on that.

And I would say, why are you not prioritizing community?

Why are you not prioritizing deepening friendships or making new ones if this is something that you've struggled with?

Right.

I mean, I talk to people all the time that they don't have very many close friends or they don't have any close friends that live near them.

Right.

Maybe they've moved across the country.

Maybe they're a military family.

So they're always moving.

And so.

And some people are just introverted, or maybe they were so busy raising their kids that they just never really had the time or met the right person or group of people to do life with.

So I absolutely get that.

But it's never too late.

We can always build relationships, build community, build friendships.

You could do it with an interest you have.

Maybe you've started gardening or baking bread or you love pickleball.

Well, you build community through common interests as well.

So don't hesitate to nurture what you're already doing and go deeper with those friendships.

Don't be afraid to invite somebody to grab coffee or, hey, you Seem to, like you're really into being physically fit.

Would you want to walk after, you know, whatever you're doing, pickleball or whatnot?

I also want to encourage you if you're somebody that building community or I'm sorry, even being part of community or investing in friendships or even making friends is hard.

Or maybe you've been hurt before.

Who hasn't, right?

If you've ever cared about someone who hasn't had maybe something happen to them at some point where you just felt like, like, why aren't we friends anymore?

Or, you know, they didn't really.

They weren't really there for you.

Those things can happen, too.

But what I do know is this.

When you try to do life without being vulnerable, when you try to do life without other people, whether you feel isolated or lonely now, you will feel it more.

I interviewed a woman probably two or three years ago, and she went through a season.

I think she was like early 30s at the time, and she was a principal at a school and maybe in the Midwest.

And she.

She just felt really isolated.

She felt really alone.

And she actually just really didn't think she mattered to anybody.

And she ended up in the hospital.

And here's the thing.

She then realized, like, people did care about her.

And she also realized, like, I want to be here.

I want to live.

And she started after she came back from that.

She started, like, making friendships in an area she was interested in, which was like, competitive sports.

But my point is, is you do matter.

But if you don't share in life with other people, you're never going to experience that.

And it can, it can be easy to start feeling like no one sees you or you don't have anybody to go to.

Right?

Like when you're struggling with something.

I also tell you this.

When we start sharing with other people, of course we have to put in the time in order to feel safe to share with other people.

Other people start to share.

In other words, we give each other permission to share what we're walking through.

Maybe it's because you're.

You got in a tiff with your spouse, or maybe it's that you are struggling with something about your faith.

Maybe it's that you're starting to walk through, right?

Like, life changes as a woman, because as we know, you know, it could be in your 40s or your 50s.

You know, people go through the different, you know, perimenopause and menopause.

So whatever it is, if we don't share it with other people, we won't Know, like we're not alone in this.

Other people are walking through things either today or they did or they will.

And in the book Find you'd People by Jenny Allen, which is a really good book, it's about building deep community in a lonely world.

Right?

So it's a great book, but she shares some words by CS Lewis and it's about that whole being vulnerable and that you have to put yourself out there even though it can be scary, even though you don't know it'll happen.

So this is what he says.

Love.

Anything in your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.

If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one, not even an animal.

Wrap it carefully around the hobbies and little luxuries.

Avoid all entanglements.

Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of selfishness.

But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change.

It will not be broken.

It will become unbreakable, impenetrable, unredeemable.

To love is to be vulnerable.

And.

And then she says, but is that self protection worth the cost of continuing to live isolated and sad?

And you know, I would just keep encouraging you because I promise you, I make friendship, I make time with people that I care about a priority.

Especially my girlfriend.

Relationships.

Yes.

I have my husband and my kids, of course I spend time with them.

My adult young children or young men, sons, I mean they'll spend time with me, but it's.

I do wish it was different or more.

They're all still at home, but my husband and I will go do things, of course.

But I also invest in my friendships.

Like I prioritize that time and I know a lot of people don't for whatever reason, but I'm telling you, it's so worth it to know that I have people around me that I can count on that are there for me and that I can be there for them.

It makes life so much richer.

And I also want to remind you that when things happen in our own lives or in the world, our default can be to pull away from people.

Right?

We can, we can wanna.

Well, I don't wanna share that.

I'm embarrassed.

Or you feel shame or guilt, or maybe you just think no one else feels this way.

I promise that's not true.

Do you know how many times a friend of mine shared something or vice versa, and they were walking through something and they're like, I didn't think anyone else felt this way until they shared it.

And then they realized, like, I have walked through that too, where I felt really down or I felt really depressed, or I was struggling in this part of my marriage or whatever it might be.

And so I just remind you, people will be vulnerable when you're vulnerable, or vice versa.

Sometimes we have to go first.

And yes, you need to make sure it's somebody that you've put in enough time with that you can trust.

But we start by building trust little by little, right?

Small things.

And then as you trust somebody or a community, you can share more things in an intimate, in a small group.

People that you know will be there for you.

They'll pray for you, they'll encourage you, they won't be talking behind your back.

And I've talked about friendship before.

I've talked about building community before.

I've had guests on about this, not recently, but I read an article yesterday, someone I follow, she's an investigative journalist, she shared a guest post by a gentleman.

And it was, it was a sad story.

It was basically how the isolation and loneliness of COVID lockdowns in that time frame really caused a lot of struggles for people.

And I'm sure, you know, this might have impacted you like that or it might have impacted someone in your family.

It's.

It impacted someone in my family, right.

They.

I've talked about this for, but they experienced extreme depression from that isolation and the loneliness.

But anyway, so the story about this gentleman was that he was a full of life kind of guy.

He had livelihood and, you know, with income and he worked with all these young students in his camps.

But the COVID years took this away from him and he ended up going down a, you know, a dark or bad path.

Well, a couple years later he just, well experienced despair.

And then from there he started using drugs.

Well, anyways, he ends up passing, which is horrible.

It was obviously a really sad story.

But the one line near the end of this that he, that the author said was my friend's life was built on presence, purpose and belonging.

And the lockdowns, right, he's explaining is, I'm sorry, the lockdowns and all the things in isolation took all that away from him.

Now, obviously, we don't all walk through and go on that path because of these things.

What I'm saying is it's that line.

Life was built on presence, purpose and belonging.

And isn't that true?

We have to have those things in order to thrive.

Because as soon as we're disconnected, right, from community or disconnected from belonging, we start losing something in us because we were designed for connection.

And of course I would not.

I would be remiss if I didn't say of course.

Connection with God.

Right.

That's where it starts.

But God also designed us to have connection with each other and then to be centered in ourselves.

But we get that from God and from the other, you know, relationships.

But one, we have to be present and that means being present with God.

That means being present with other people.

We have to have purpose, livelihood.

And the point is we live in times where, whether it's some lockdown and of course, I think in the future more of those are coming for whatever reason.

It might be for energy lockdowns, but we're going to have to figure out ways to still do community even if these things happen.

We also have to figure out how to have purpose even if the job that we have been doing gets taken or it changes.

So.

So we have to understand that we have purpose in life no matter what it is we're doing right in our work.

And we have to make sure that we have belonging, that we have community, and that we're doing life with other people.

Because when we don't, we start shriveling up.

Right.

We don't thrive anymore.

This is much like why old tribes, they didn't have to.

If somebody did something.

Right.

Right.

That they shouldn't have based on that tribe's kind of roles.

They excommunicated people.

Right.

Or they kicked them out to try to do life on their own.

Well, those people would struggle because if you don't have other people to come around you to protect you.

Right.

If a animal or another tribe came around, you would, you wouldn't survive as long.

And so today, I think because we feel so connected with computers and our phones and know we have 24,7 access to everything texting, we mistaken that for real belonging.

And I'm not saying we can't have belonging through zoom or through our phones.

What I'm saying is that should not and does not truly replace belonging in person.

We have to have people around us and.

Or at least to.

To thrive as best we can.

I'm not saying that you couldn't still have a rich life and your connections are all online.

You.

That's possible, maybe, but I'm just saying for most of us, we need to do.

We need to belong in real life.

Right.

Your neighbors, talking to them out front, whether you have a table or not, inviting them, just do a little gathering in your.

I live in a court, so I only have 15 neighbors in my little court.

Well, I can invite Them just to say, hey, let's just.

I mean, years ago, actually, it was during beginning of COVID or right before COVID we did a movie night in the court, and whoever could come, came.

We set up, you know, one of those screens and used a projector, and everybody just brought their own chairs and snacks.

But see, what I'm saying is it doesn't have to be this elaborate effort.

You don't have to cook dinner for the entire neighborhood.

That's lovely, too.

But you see my point.

You can still do a potluck.

Like, it's okay, at least in most places.

I get it.

I know some people in my circles who.

They would never do that.

Right?

That's below them.

They think they would only, like, cater the whole thing.

Well, that's great.

If you're.

If you're somebody in that position and you want to go all out, go for it.

But it's not about pretense, and it's not about presentation.

It's about presence.

Right.

Like I said from that gentleman that wrote that, it's about presence, gathering on purpose, and it's about building community.

It's about having a place of belonging, a place to feel welcome.

It's about extending out the invitation and then also being the invitation, being somebody that's willing to go and be of service, to show up in love and kindness, even when you weren't asked.

Okay, and why do I bring all this up?

I just.

I bring it up because I see.

See how hard it is, right, to walk through life, especially when it's those hard seasons, loss and grief, diagnosis.

And when we don't have people that come around us, it's so much harder.

It is so much harder.

And God didn't design us to live that way.

He designed us to do exactly what the two.

Just the part of scriptures that I referenced in Romans and Galatians, he gave us each other.

But we have to start remembering that.

Just like we should prioritize our faith and connecting and getting.

Having time with God every day, getting in his presence, we have to also be in the presence of other people and actually be present.

And I get that this is hard for people sometimes.

Now I have other episodes that talk about community.

We talk about how you can extend the invitation.

I will put those in the show notes so that you can go ahead and listen to those if you want to get deeper into this, because I get this is kind of like more of a overview, a highlight.

But, you know, and I'm going to be honest today, I didn't I'm normally often ad lib on my episodes.

Like I have a general direction.

I'm going, I might have a couple things I want to share.

But I'm going to be honest.

Some days it's harder to pull out an episode and get it done.

You know, like I have an idea, but it just doesn't flow as well.

And I get it today maybe didn't flow as well as I would have liked.

It didn't feel as smooth as I would have liked.

But the honest truth is I'm just showing up, I'm being consistent as God's calling me to do it.

And sometimes that means it's going to be messy.

Right.

It's not going to exactly flow the way I wanted to, but I still have to show up and I still have to put it out there because if I tried to make it perfect sometimes, then three weeks would pass.

It's same with our friendships.

It's the same with belonging.

Don't wait till something's perfect.

Don't wait till your house is perfect.

Right now, my backyard, on the side of my backyard, I have like, my husband has this whole area that's stuff to take to the dump.

Well, he's not going to get to that for another week and a half probably because he has a trip coming up.

We also, one of my sons and husband just cut down two not huge trees, like smaller trees, but they're just sitting in the backyard right now.

And then they took down a gazebo.

Well, that's sitting in my backyard.

Yes.

I want to move it to the side so the whole backyard doesn't look a mess.

But the honest truth is I'm still going to invite some friends over.

I'm going to make it look as much as best I can under the circumstances, but it will not be perfect.

And look, I have friends that have some perfect backyards.

I mean, literally not one thing's out of place.

I don't have that backyard.

I have some nice spaces, but I also have areas that look like, you know, I live in the wilderness, if you will.

That's not going to stop me.

Because even in the midst of messy, we have to show up for each other.

That's the only way we build.

That's the only way we start to feel like we belong.

And I promise, at the end of life, people, what are people going to say about you?

And it matters.

Are people going to say you were the hardest worker for a company that you're working for?

Well, maybe, but that's not really where the Passion and the love comes in.

It's how you showed up for people, that you did life with other people, that you have stories that are funny and heartfelt and that you showed up in love and you showed up to care for other people and you let people in to care for you.

The end of the day, that's what matters.

Yes, prioritize your faith, prioritize your family, but also prioritize other people, your other relationships.

Because one day our kids are going to move away.

And yes, you know, we still are going to have those relationships, but we also want other adult relationships, people we can count on when maybe our kids move across the country or God forbid, something happens to our spouse or not.

We just like my.

I have a husband and three sons.

I relate so different to them being men than I do to my girlfriends.

The girlfriends, we can talk the entire time I see them.

We can talk about other topics.

Well, in my house, there's a lot of topics that.

Or that the guys in my house don't want to talk about or they get impatient.

They were just built different than I was.

So for me, I need that girlfriend time because that's where I get to just let down my guard and just us be able to talk right to each other.

And that's how women connect.

We talk in a different way.

We.

We relate in a different way than men and women often.

So that's it for today.

I just want to encourage you.

You know what?

Go out, like give yourself a go.

Go out this week and just invite somebody.

Invite them for coffee, invite them to a group you already have.

Or a Bible study.

Let me see.

I was going to share.

If you're into plants or gardening, then go to a farmer's market or go to a.

Some sort of gardening event or create a garden event.

I'm actually working on creating a neighborhood garden or produce community, you know, or club, because there's some in my area, but there's none in my neighborhood or the next bigger neighborhood that I'm a part of.

Actually, there's one that's like, for plants, but I want to do one that's more about like food and herbs that we grow.

Right.

Things like that, seeds.

And so that'll be another way to connect with other people that have a similar interest or want to learn about that.

So it doesn't matter.

You could do a Bible study.

It doesn't have to be a Bible study.

It can just be an invitation to have your.

Your neighbors over.

Like I said, it can just be a. I'll Put out a couple snacks, right?

It doesn't have to be elaborate.

So that's it.

Give yourself a goal.

Give yourself one thing or one person that you're going to talk to today or this week or even this month.

And then also reach out to somebody, you know, one of your friends or somebody and say, hey, let's meet.

We haven't gotten together in a while.

Like let's go grab lunch or let's meet right after work or whatever it might be.

And I get it, sometimes you're just super busy.

So invite them in anyways, say, you know what, tonight I have to fold laundry and I have to do all this stuff, but if you want to come over and just hang out with me while I fold the laundry and we can chit chat and catch up.

My one girlfriend, she loves having people over when she's cooking because she's like, well, tonight's my cooking night.

You know, she cooks a lot, but I mean, she'll be like, I'll be prepping in the kitchen.

But if you want to come over, right, and have a lemonade or a glass of wine or whatever, right?

So just make it work.

In the life you're living right now, whatever season you're in, you can make it work, but you have to make it a priority.

You have to be intentional with it.

Just like everything else, much like your health, you have to be intentional.

If you say, every day I'm going to get in a walk, well, whether you have little kids or your kids are grown and flown, when are you fitting in the walk?

Or do you not truly have 30 minutes or however long?

So maybe you're doing five minute walks in between work calls, or maybe you're just bouncing on a rebounder or doing jumping jacks in between meetings, whatever it is.

But it's about being intentional and having making something a priority in our lives.

And so anyways, that's it, that's it for today and I hope you have a wonderful and blessed weekend.

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