Liz Schauer

World Bank claims that there are 7.125+ billion people in the world today. I remember when we hit 6 billion in the 90s and I thought that was simply insane. The jump from 6 to 7 sounds small, right, six to seven… billion. I cannot even fathom how many people that is. I interact with maybe 20 people a day, some days more, some days less (like my days off when I don’t talk to anyone).

When I think about the number of people in our world, in our cities, in our schools/workplaces, in our neighborhoods, and even in our own homes, it is astonishing to me that we are surrounded, and yet many of us feel deeply alone. We feel isolated, misunderstood, unheard, and unnoticed. As our population continues to rise, so does depression, anxiety, fear of judgment, and isolation.

I have felt this – the deep loneliness – sitting in a room surrounded by people but feeling completely alone on the inside. I have also felt the opposite – the deep knowingness – sitting across from a friend and feeling totally seen and understood. There difference lies in refusing to walk alone.

You can stand aside and wait for community to happen or you can choose to enter in. You can be safe and never get “hurt”, or you can let people in and choose love and vulnerability at the risk of being hurt. One thing I have learned is simply this: Community is worth the probability of pain.

I’ve worked with hundreds of high school students over the last seven years, and I have lost count of the times I have been told, “I am alone…nobody knows what I am going through…nobody cares…nobody understands.” As I sit across from them, my heart resonates with them – I have been there – but my heart breaks because so many choose to stay there.

Dear friends, you must choose to enter in, you must choose to let people in, and therein lies community and freedom.

Sometimes refusing to walk alone means you have to take the first step. You have to find a friend that you trust and just get real. You have to be willing to surpass possible judgment, because deep down I believe that we spend more time fearing being judged than actually being judged. Let’s be honest, does it really matter whether or not people judge you? Be you, be confident, and if people judge you, that is their burden to carry, not yours.

People may hurt you, but they can also heal you. You do not have to walk alone, but you have to be willing to walk. There tends to be great fear in ‘letting people in’ because they ‘won’t understand,’ but living in isolation will never allow the past hurts to heal, it will only leave you lonely.

Each of us has a story, we have successes and failures, highs and lows, times when we have felt built up and times when we have felt torn down, there are pains that will impact us for the rest of our lives, and there are moments of pure joy. This is called being a human; we are all in it together, so let’s choose to do it together.

The past few months have been some of the most stretching in my life, but one thing has been so evident: I have incredible “people.” My people have loved me, lavished grace on me, walked with me, bought me coffee, watched movies with me, listened to me, cried with me, made me laugh, hugged me, and simply made me realize that I am not alone. Each Sunday when I walk around Willow, I am overwhelmed with the assurance that I am not alone, that these are my people, and that these people are for me and they are with me.

I haven’t always felt this way, not with my friends, not in the church, but a shift started to happen in me and I believe that it’s simply because I stopped caring and I stopped apologizing. I used to feel shame if things were “bad” and if I shared how I truly felt with others – I assumed that I would be a burden in their lives. Thanks to a faithful few friends, I have come to see how incredibly codependent that is, and I have found freedom in just being a human. I love to be there for people and journey with them through life’s ups and downs, and I have learned to let others walk with me, because after all, that is where we tend to experience the love of God the most.

About a month and a half ago, I found myself sitting in a basement crying. My two best friends came down with a box of tissues and hugged me. I simply cried. I fought ever urge to apologize for ‘interrupting’ what they had going on, because for them, the most important thing in that moment was hugging their hurting friend. I did not feel like a burden, because I was not a burden, I was simply a person in hard place who was being held up by her friends. I think that was the first time in my life when I felt the freedom to just be fully where I was at, unashamedly sharing my hurts and my heart. No apologizes were necessary, because I don’t have to walk alone, I just have to be willing to let others walk with me.

It is much easier to be on the other side of that – supporting friends, loving them, being there for them – but when we learn to let people into our own pain, the real change happens.

If you’re reading this, my guess is that you fall more into the “keep everything neat and orderly and together and never look like you’re falling apart” camp than the “give me attention always because my life is always in a state of chaos” camp. I’m with you. My encouragement to you is this:

Breathe in the grace and exhale the worry, walk with people and allow them to walk with you, because those who love you have less judgment on you than you do on yourself, and their words and their presence have the power to heal.