On today's episode Kristin talks about being there for each other and the need to connection, have deeper conversations, give hugs and the need to be encouragers, sharers of hope and connection. Kristin's son's university and college nearby have recently experienced loss and grief and that experience prompted her to share this message with you today.

#grief #loss #upliftothers #hope #christianinspiration #givemorehugs #connection #community #checkuponothers #faith #encouragement

spark_of_faith__ep24_check_in_on_folks_go_beyond_hello

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

person, check, share, people, hopeful, struggling, connect, lift, campus, talk, longing, school, love, lonely, impact, give, faith, reach, spark, happened

00:00

Welcome to spark a faith. This is your host, Kristen Fitch each day on the show, I'll be bringing you words of encouragement and stories that are inspiring and will lift you up and provide you with hope to go into your day and just feel a little lighter, a little more hopeful. And on occasion, we'll bring on guests and talk about great and important topics about gathering together and fellowship and faith, and how we can just be more beautiful, loving humans. Here we go. Let's get started. And welcome back to another episode of spark of faith. This is your host, Kristen. Welcome. And as I thought about what the topic was, I wanted to talk about today. What did I want to share? Or what message did I want to, you know, lift others up with or just encourage them. As I was thinking about that. Something that happened at my one of my son's schools was on my heart. And I decided I wanted to talk about the impact that things have on us, and also just how tough it is in the world right now and how lonely people are. So today I want to talk about let's check in on each other. And let's go beyond the Hello. So here's the thing, my son is at a university in Virginia. And in the last week, at a school, within 10 minutes of him, there was a shooter is an active shooter on campus. And two police officers were killed. And I believe at least one of the people that had a gun or the shooter. And then someone on his campus last week died. And then someone else just three days ago, also died in at the time they said that person wasn't a student or faculty, but I haven't heard any update yet on what exactly happened to that person. But so there was a lot of tragedy tragedy at their school and very close to their school on another campus. So it's been stressful. It's been sad. There's a lot of emotions and feelings that can go along with with all these things. But on top of that we are living in a time when people are disconnected more than ever, in the sense of we've gone through COVID There's been more isolation, people are wearing masks, they are on a campus where for the last year and a half or longer, they've been required in all indoor settings to wear masks. They can't see each other smiles or laughter or any any facial expressions. So in them, we're living in a state of fear as a, you know, whole as the society as a whole. There's constant worry that people are kind of feeling people are losing jobs, people maybe aren't sure how they're going to pay their bills or their college tuition. So on top of the things that just happened at a school, we are already struggling around the world with more mental health issues than we've ever had with depression, with higher anxiety with more substance abuse issues. And so what was on my heart today was, yes, we need to check in on our neighbors, our family members, our friends, maybe people we don't even know. But we have to go beyond just saying like, how are you doing? Because most of us our default is I'm okay, you know, things are okay. Or maybe even we've met, we feel sadness, or worry. Or maybe we're having, you know, other thoughts like we're depressed, or maybe we're having, you know, much more negative thoughts or thoughts of harm, it could be so many things. Maybe we don't see what the purpose of our life is. Maybe we don't understand how much value we have to give in this lifetime of ours that we've been given. So what I would say to you is, here's a few ideas on how we can connect and reach out and try to lift each other spirits up to lift each other up into to check on each other. The first is, don't just check in on your friend via text or social media. Try to connect with more people in person. Go and find someone for a walk, go by pop by their house for coffee or invite them over. Go see your kid at school. You know, go drop in this weekend if you if you can. And then don't just talk to people. Give them a hug. A big fat, hard long hug. Me and woman child I don't it doesn't matter. People are longing for connection. They're longing for affection. They're longing for touch. So the first thing I'd say to you is give them a hug, rub their back, whatever, whatever you're comfortable doing.

04:58

Bring them something that lets them know that you really care about them. Bring them flowers, when there's no reason for it, you know, no, no birthday, no special occasion. Bring them a little goodie bag of things to lift their spirits. Bring them a book that you love and just made you feel hopeful. Share with them a hopeful story of something that's happened to you or someone you know. Because sometimes when I talk to some of my friends, they say, it's just so there's so much things to worry about right now. And there's so much unknown, and how can you be hopeful right now. So I share with them, you know, things that helped me. And of course, part of that is putting things in perspective, trying to put people first connections, praying, taking time to reflect on all the things I'm grateful for. There's so many ways. And if you think someone's struggling, you know, you can just tell their emotions, the way they respond or don't respond. How else can you reach out to them? How else can you keep checking in? Is there anything else you can do that could help. And in some cases, maybe we do need to help or take someone or encourage them to go talk to someone, you know, it could be a counselor, it could be a pastor, it could be a therapist. And there's actually lots of websites online now, where you can you can message with someone or you can even call them for free or for very affordable for them to be an active listener to something you have going on, or to get therapy. But I think we one also need to make it okay, and make it normal for all of us to talk about what we're struggling with, out loud. For us to share when we're struggling with our mental health or when we're struggling with thoughts that we're not, you know, we don't have any value to add to whatever it is we're thinking about. So that's the other thing, connect with people more deeply, more regularly. connect with more people reach out to more people, if someone's on your heart, thinking about them, find a way to reach out as deeply and in person as you can. And if you can't be in person to see their face, can you send them something? Is there someone else nearby them that could check in on them, or go see them or have coffee with them? The other thing is, check in, but don't just say how you doing because for instance, my son in college, he is not the person that would reach out and tell us oh my gosh, you won't believe what happened. On occasion he does. But it's more that we have to check in with him because we were hearing things that were going on. And then he would share with us, Oh, I heard this and this is going on and think this is the case. And oh, this other thing happened. In other words, we have to open the dialogue with him a lot of times about the specific things for him to share them more. When he does that, it allows us then to have a dialogue with him that we might not have otherwise had because he's away at school, you know, hours away. And then we can try our best to support him and let him know, of course, that we love them. And, you know, what else can we do for him and of course, to let us know if there's anything we can help him with or this. And then later in the week, we checked in with him again, and told him some things that campus was doing, you know, and just said, like, hey, we know today you guys are off school, kind of as an honor, you know, for and although in everything that was going on. And he didn't go to those things that day. But then he shared with us that he'd gone to a vigil the night before. Once again, you know, we were just trying to give him helpful information and check in. But then he shared with us something else he had done that, you know, it was nice to know he did that with a group of friends and most of the campus. But my point is, is you just have to keep checking in you have to keep in a positive way in honest open way. And just a I'm here for you, you know, weigh in no matter you know what, what the person says or does just keep being that constant in their life. The next thing I would say is invite people in, give them an invitation, given give them an invitation to your home or to meet you somewhere. Give them an invitation to come to your church or share with them something uplifting, inspiring it can be faith based or not. That might lift their spirits.

09:35

There are so many ways we can connect with each other and sometimes we can get kind of stuck in our own ruts, worrying about our own problems and struggles and anxiety that we forget to check in and other people we get self absorbed. I'm as guilty as the next person of this. Although I very often think of others and try to do things and connect. We all have our days or moments or weeks or years but I find When I actually reach out and I connect, when I listen to that quiet whisper deep within me within my soul that says, you know, hey, this person, I think maybe you should reach out to them. When I listen when I slow my day down, and I find a way to make that happen. I know for a fact that it was what I'm I was meant to, to, to have an impact on that person for that day for that moment. Versus Oh, yeah, yeah, at some point, maybe I'll think about that person. But I keep putting it off. And I've done that too. But every time I listen to that small whisper, that person that's on my mind, the person that's, you know, in my heart because of something that I saw or heard them say, or, you know, maybe that they didn't say, but I know they're going through something, maybe I don't even know exactly what it is. But I knew in that moment that I impacted them or that you know, for the better I lifted their spirit just a bit or maybe in a big huge way, in a way that they needed more than I can ever or maybe will ever know. So today, I just want to encourage you check in on people, even on strangers, you can say hello, smile at them. Tell you tell them that you hope they have a great day, anything you want, whatever comes to you. But just check in on people. And let's go beyond the hellos. Let's give more hugs. Let's give more hope, in love. So that hopefully we can turn around these times that are very hard on so many, that people feel lost, they feel lonely, they feel hopeless, especially our teenagers and our young adults, you know, of course others to you know, people that maybe you're going through a hard time, cancer death, as you know, elderly parents that are struggling. But I think most of all our youth grew up in a time when they think they're connected, so many people with their devices, and on these social media channels. But as we've learned, you can feel even more lonely than ever, when we're on these things too much. And we can compare others lives or other's relationships on these devices to our own, we end up less hopeful, less happy, less inspired, when we spend too much time on these devices. And I can promise you, many of us are spending too much time on them. But our teens are, you know, maybe our kids and our young adults are spending so much time on their, in some cases, that those are their relationships, and they have less in person relationships. So let's keep encouraging, you know, dinner when we can together or playing games together, getting out you know, to go do something outdoors. Because those connection points in real life will have such a great impact on the people we're connecting with. So I would just say again, go beyond the Hello, and show up in the world as best you can to share love and hope and encouragement with others. Until next time. Thanks again for listening to spark of faith. If you enjoyed the show, we would love it if you would share it with a friend. And if you would leave us a rating and review on Apple podcast because it helps us get discovered by more people to spread more hope in the world. So thanks again and we send a weekly little encouragement email as well just go to spark a faith.com and enter your email address and he would love to encourage you in your inbox as well.