Alone.

     Recently, a long distance friend called me and shared that she felt truly alone. Her life is hard and rather than embrace her through the time, everyone left her. Invitations to dinners dried up, friends made excuses to not come over, and her church looked away. This is becoming reality for all too many people.
     We have become a people where inconvenience and messiness is somethin to ignore. "You understand, right? Your son gets really wound up. It is hard on the other children. We're still friends though. Always." First, emails go unanswered. Then phone calls go strait to voicemail. Then they start hiding behind food displays in the grocery. Plans get made and splashed all over your newsfeed you never heard a word about it. The overwhelming message is, "You're too messy. Go away. I can't help you." I have faced it and so had she. This from good Christian fellow church members.
     I have decided to see the others in the same circumstance and reach out. To notice who is alone and left out. It is easy to do when you stand in crowded lobbies quietly watching groups and look at who wasn't tagged in that social media group shot. In doing so, I have found a ministry. I have found brokenness and real needs that can be helped. We have all found support.
     My word today is two fold, if you find yourself alone in a crowd, look for others feeling the same way. Make your own crowd of outcasts. We're pretty cool people. If you are in the group making plans for the weekend, reach out to the lady never invited. Isolation, ignoring the needs of others, hoping someone else will take care of it, is never what God intended. We are the hands and feet of God. We are the ones called to do His work. Sometimes that means inviting the family with the tough kid and telling your kid to suck it up. Pray about who needs love in your life and extend that hand to them.