Thanks for joining me!
How are you doing with this isolation- due to restrictions pertaining to the Covid-19?
How are you feeling? Are you struggling with loneliness, depression, boredom?
I am an extrovert. I can tell you that I am struggling not being around more people. I also have this ‘thing’- I hate to call people, yet if they call me I call talk a lot! Anyhow…. I am counting the days until freedom- for me. Yet, these feelings of loneliness are not really a new issue for me. Being abandoned by my father as an infant, feeling rejected or not fully accepted by the step family, and the biological family – can set you up to feel alone automatically in any situation. I have to pay attention to these sometimes -still automatic- feelings in every new situation.
This season of isolation we are in can be welcomed by many introverts. I have read many social posts of seeing this time as a gift. It also can be a time to make adjustments to our priorities. I think that is beautiful! I have even utilized this season to start some things I have procrastinated at- like our blog and our FB live videos!- which is good. But I am NOT enjoying it at all.
Are you struggling like me? Our virtual meetings and drive-by’s can help some of us. But it doesn’t make up for the face to face connection. The togetherness.
We were made for connection- and healthy relationships. At the beginning of time, God said it was not good for us to be alone. So He created us to have relationship- with Him and with others. Parents, a spouse, friends… Later, He says to not stop meeting together to encourage one another. He made us to need others to grow, to learn, and to know love.
Healthy relationships are a reflection of the kind of connection God wants to have with us. He often shows us glimpses of himself through some of the people He puts in our lives.
Some struggle with isolation and loneliness more than me and you. Women who have been exploited and sold as a sex product- Their abuse and traumas within the warped relationships they have had makes them very familiar with intense isolation. The disconnection, self-pity, hopelessness, rejection, lack of social support, loneliness, and the isolation from what they need can flood them with fear, panic, and intense shame, and then continue to be a barrier to getting their needs met now.
Maybe this season of isolation will help others feel more empathy for those who are truly struggling with loneliness. Maybe this season will help us all really see others and be present in the moment with those around us.
At Redeem and Restore Center we do various things to help support our volunteers so we can help support previously exploited women.
My favorite is thing we do is through our consistent monthly meetings called Healing Relationships. This is where trained volunteers do life with them- by Eating, Playing, Creating, Learning, and talking together in monthly events.
This event is important because:
· Consistency builds trust to grow and become whole.
· It brings a sense of Community that breeds real friendships
· It brings them Fun & Joy which leads them to hope for a future.
When someone has gone through this much trauma, the first mark of healing and being able to see and have hope for the future is when they laugh again.
This is truly the way God wants to transform them to a new future- we cant do this alone- we need your help to do it.
Directly or indirectly-
Its Together that we are able to love, restore and support exploited women to a life of freedom and victory!
See you on the other side of this isolation!
-Chaplain Krista Hull
