We all need friendship and connection. For many, it is not easy to make new friends later in life (like… past middle school!), but friendship is vital and life-giving, and it is SO worth the risk of putting ourselves out there.

Enjoy this excerpt from a great book entitled Craving Connection. Maybe you need this “connection challenge”. Later this weekend, I’ll write a bit more about our need for community.

When it comes to friendships and being in community, our heart of hearts is the same.

We want to:

• Be invited.
• Sit together for a meal.
• Share our hearts and be understood.
• Stay up late talking and laughing.
• Do fun things together.
• Cry together.
• Hug each other.
• Have a conversation using only a look.
• Be known.

Friends refill us. Friends refresh us. Friends refuel our souls… but only if we let them.

And it can be hard to let them, because the hurt we may experience only grows with our hearts and age. Now we know the risks. Now we know what we’re missing out on. Now we know that to be denied friendship can feel like a reflection of who we are… but sister, it isn’t.

It isn’t foolish to reach out, hoping to build a friendship. It isn’t foolish to take the first step, trying to further a friendship. It isn’t foolish to extend a hand, desiring to repair a friendship.

Having and holding hope isn’t foolish, but it is risky.

She could say no. She could laugh at you. She could hurt you.

Sure, she could—but even if she does, God won’t allow it to go to waste. He’s in the business of redemption, and ultimately our hope is in Him.

// Craving Connection: 30 Challenges for Real-Life Engagement by (in)courage pg. 34