Isolation in a world of connectedness is real

I was listening to a podcast that’s hosted by the church we attend and I almost burst into tears. I felt the sour taste of bitterness come up to my mouth just listening to people talking about isolation. The reason I felt like crying is because even though I don’t look like it, I have often felt that way even with my friendships and relationships in my church community.
Just to be clear, I am not writing this to call out my church for my lack of friendships or present myself as a person with no weaknesses. In fact through this same church I had the pleasure of meeting great people and continue to enjoy their friendships. My intention is to shed light on the struggle of making deeper relationships and the hard place of isolation.
Here’s the thing, I came from Ethiopia 5 years ago as a 26 years old adult leaving family, friends, ministries I was involved and invested in, church community that knew me even before I was born and everything else I knew existed in all my life only to start over in the new country I dared to call home.
The only person I knew was my husband and the only number of people I knew were his parents. (Thankfully they are an amazing people and I feel lucky to call them my family. Life here would have been unthinkable if it wasn’t for them). Everything else was new and as you can imagine, I immediately felt lost. When Sunday came I was ecstatic. Church is my jam. If you know me you know that what ever situation or mood I’m in if I go to church I instantly feel at home. Because it’s my father’s house and the people are family. I grew up attending church regularly sometimes three times a week. Don’t worry, I’m not wired. This is totally normal where I come from. Even though I was only in the country for just four days, I couldn’t contain my excitement the first Sunday when we drove to the big church. When we walked into the lobby I was a little overwhelmed but still excited to experience my first service in America.
The service was great and the worship even blew my mind. Then we walked out to the big lobby and I felt small. In the coming weeks the hard reality that I didn’t know anyone here began to sink in. I had so many questions for my husband. First why was no one saying hi to him or stopped to talk to him? He explained that some of the people he knew attended the different services either Saturday or Sunday or have left the church but It was also undeniably clear that he did not know a whole lot of people for a person who was there for 15 years.
I was not used to attending a church service that’s about 80 minutes long to only go home without talking to people. It was the shortest Sunday interactions I’ve had in all my years of attending church. Where I’m from after a 2 and half or 3 hours of service, give it another half an hour of greetings and mingling, we would go out for coffee to catchup with friends from church. It’s also not a surprise if we get invited to someone’s house for lunch or we invite them to ours which makes our Sundays a more than a half day event. But I love it because church is about people.
I later came to realize that the church is really big and it can feel overwhelming for new people like me. I was told by the hospitality team that I needed to get in groups or serve in ministry areas to help make the church feel smaller. So I jumped in the first opportunity I got to serve in the worship choir. From that moment on it was more involvements and connections. I joined a women’s group which was another great start to be part of smaller groups. But I can’t lie. There were also days I sat in bathroom stalls until choir rehearsals begun because I felt like no one noticed me.
In the first 9 months of coming here I went through the hardest and grueling season of waiting to get my green card in order to start driving and find employment. It was a total isolation for a person who is dependent on others for friendships and daily human interactions. In the next five years I moved from volunteering in choir to doing a 9 months ministry internship to becoming a staff member of the great church that I admired. It was a dream come true and everything seemed perfect.
So why was I moved to tears as I was listening to the podcast you may ask. Allow me to share with you a couple of stories. These are our experiences and told from our perspective.
My husband who grew up in this church from when he was in middle school to now adulthood recently said to me “Emni, I feel invisible sometimes. Like no one sees me or wants to talk to me at church”. I said “that’s not true, there are plenty of people that know you” but deep inside I knew what he was talking about and broke my heart. It’s gut wrenching to hear your husband say that out loud. Here’s the thing. My husband is the most intentional person I know when it comes to people. I mean he gives it his all. Bless his heart. He remembers people and their names and makes sure he goes out of his way to ask how they are doing even when it feels like they’re ignoring him sometimes. Here’s one example. My husband introduced himself to one well known church member who leads in different capacity like three, four times that after a while I got so annoyed and told my husband it’s enough. I mean the guy was asking for my husband’s name and who he is every time my husband says hi to him. Heart breaking.
Another one, when I gave birth to our daughter (one of the greatest moments of our life) I was still a staff member at this multi-campus church with over 100 employees at the time. I had a c-section which required me to stay at the hospital for 5 days. In those days the only people who came to see us were my in-laws. I have no family here. NO ONE came from my church family where not only I considered my only community but also where I worked.
As a foreigner (although I’m now a citizen but moments like this will always make me feel I’m not at home) it’s the most alone I felt in all my five years of living here. The fact that I was in a hospital with the most exciting news of my life and then to come home to literally an empty house; I wept as I walked in. I kept imagining how it would have been different if I had given birth in my home country, I remembered when my sister gave birth the flood of people that came to see her and how surrounded she was for days and weeks to come. I even thought how different it would have been had I been attending the Ethiopian community church. Even though the number of the congregation is not more than 30 people their members are well visited and taken care of in time such as this.
Bur after I came home from the hospital, 4 staff members and few other friends came throughout my 3 months of maternity leave. I will never forget those people because it meant a lot to me. I’m grateful for those who threw me a baby shower and then after the birth not only came to my house but brought gifts and meals.
I understand the culture is different and I need to amend my unrealistic expectations accordingly. But friends, feeling like you’re lonely and like you don’t have people around you, that feeling you can’t shake it off. That’s not some made up feeling. When you feel like you are home among family, you definitely will know.
You might say we are partly responsible for the way things are and I agree, we are. After all my husband is a homeschooled kid who was not a popular kid in his youth group and did not have a lot of friends and I am just a foreigner who is battling constant culture shock and a bunch of insecurities. Even though these things are true and we are people with lots of short comings, we are also not people who shy away from meeting new people. We continue to put ourselves out there even when it’s out of our comfort zone.
So here are some practices that my husband and I remember to do when we feel the bitter taste of isolation.
First, my husband and I remain hopeful. We don’t always succeed but we make an effort. We sign up for groups, get involved in ministry areas that we feel called to, say yes to meet people for coffee even when it feels awkward, invite people into our lives and our home and show up when we get invited. There were times where we felt like we should just walk away from big churches and I certainly have thought about joining one of the Ethiopian community churches around in hopes of finding people that will embrace me. But yet again we are reminded by God over and over again that we should stay and dig deep. Friends, deep and meaningful friendships are costly anywhere you go. The call is not to go to the place where it’s easy and comfortable. It’s to be somewhere where God will show up and help us as we commit to the hard things. If we dig deep enough we will find friendships that are worth like gold. Therefore, we will stay put at the place He brought us to.
Second, when we feel like giving up we remind ourselves to be thankful for the people who are already in our life and we continue to invest in those relationships until they bear fruit. We are immensely grateful for every meal that was cooked for us, every home, hands and hearts that were open to us, for every person that invested in us, prayed for us, walked with us, mentored us over the years; for all of you we are eternally grateful. We also choose to believe that if we wait enough and put ourselves out there enough God will sustain these relationships to last a lifetime and continue to bring the right people who will choose to know us.
Thirdly, we try our best to see people who feel unnoticed and overwhelmed just like we did at first and help them feel welcomed. We want to be intentional in inviting them to our home as well as connect them to others. I extend this challenge to anyone to find those people around you who look new and lost and welcome them to your life.
Last but not least I want to remind you reader to not let the world of social media lie to you. In this day and age everyone has a friend or follower but most of us still feel alone and remain without close knit friendships. The world gives a shallow meaning to relationships that we desperately crave for by replacing it with a false and instant security and gratification. Know that we are created for deeper connections than what our social media status or platforms could ever offers us. Because in the depths of our human soul and nature; to bee seen, embraced and fully known is what we all long for.