I truly believed I was doing everything right.
As a mom, wife, employee, and Christian, my life was filled with activities. I was productive, responsible, and faithful, or at least I thought I was. My days were packed, my calendar overflowing, and I was serving God in the ways I understood best..
And then God interrupted me.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
But quietly.
He began to speak, nudging my heart and exposing something uncomfortable: “You are busy, but you are not in My best plan for you.”
I didn’t like that.
Not long after, God pulled our family away from our church, our home church. The place where we were known, where we served, where we were needed. Looking back, I realize God had warned me. There were dreams. There were subtle signs. But I was slow to understand and even slower to pray about it.
So when the change finally came, it felt abrupt, unplanned, and painful.
With God’s intervention, we left everything behind—the church, the responsibilities, the titles. Suddenly, we found ourselves in a new church, simply sitting. No volunteering, no assignments. Every Sunday I listened to the sermon, and that was it.
For the first time in years, I felt something I wasn’t prepared for: Emptiness!
At my former church, I was everywhere. I was on the prayer team, teaching children, singing in the choir. There were midweek rehearsals, Sunday school lesson preparations, and multiple prayer meetings every week. I was always moving, always needed, always occupied.
But now everything was still.
And in that stillness, something else became painfully clear: I didn’t really have close friends.
Not because I wasn’t friendly, I was. I joked, complimented, and laughed with people. But I didn’t have that kind of friend—the kind who upheld my values, the kind I could fully be myself around, someone who understood me and was willing to be open without judgment or condemnation.
As I sat there, stripped of activity, noise, and purpose as I had defined it, I realized something sobering: I had been surrounded by people, yet walking alone.
Now I had time. Too much time. And I didn’t know what to do with myself.
Just listening to sermons wasn’t enough. I needed to be busy. So I filled the silence with prayer—and if I’m being honest—with seasonal dramas on Netflix. It was hard and disorienting at first, but I soon found myself enjoying the shows, each episode ending on a cliffhanger that made me want more.
Then God did something unexpected……
We met a couple at church and began meeting regularly to pray together. I connected deeply with the woman, and we talked—a lot. About God. About faith. About the discomfort of obedience.
And just when I thought God was done stripping things away, He spoke again: “Stop watching the shows.”
Oh no. This one I argued.
“God, why? That’s how I unwind. You’ve already taken everything else.”
I wrestled with Him—back and forth—feeling heavy and burdened. Then one day, after a prayer meeting, I shared this struggle with the woman. She looked at me and said something that shifted everything.
She was in the same season.
She told me God was saying, “Instead of finding pleasure in these shows, why not find your pleasure in Me?”
Suddenly, I wasn’t alone.
That season became bearable—not because it was easy, but because I had someone walking through it with me.
A year later, when God was done with us, He asked us to return to our church. But I wasn’t the same person who had left. My appetite for vain busyness was gone. I felt spiritually stronger and far less concerned with pleasing people.
I share this to say: be open, be patient with God, and be intentional about Christian friendships. Christian friendships save lives. They save time. They save strength.
As I reflect on this journey, my mind often goes to Moses. Moses struggled deeply with God’s call. When God asked him to be His prophet, Moses argued: “I’m not enough. I can’t speak. Send someone else.”
God reminded Moses who He was—“I AM that I AM.” God laid out His résumé before Moses, even performing miraculous signs, as if to say, If I did this, I can do more. Yet Moses still struggled to accept that he was the right fit.
Moses once had passion—so much that he killed an Egyptian to defend his people. He rejected palace privilege and refused comfort while his people suffered (Hebrews 11). But years later, Moses had settled into a quiet, comfortable life, and God disrupted it.
Moses knew he couldn’t do it alone.
So God sent him his brother, Aaron—a man of the same blood, a man who could speak when Moses could not. And Moses stopped arguing with God about being the right fit for the job.
Sometimes all we need is our tribe—not necessarily blood relatives, but spiritual family.
Aaron stood with Moses, and together they fulfilled God’s mandate. Later, when Israel went into battle against the Amalekites, victory followed Moses’ lifted hands. But when his arms grew heavy and strength failed him, Aaron and Hur stepped in, standing on either side and holding his hands up until the battle was won.
This is why community matters.
This is why Christian friendships matter.
Between my dear friend and me, God has given us similar assignments, and we have carried them out together with joy. That season of separation became lighter simply because someone understood. Our long conversations were always God-centered—never gossip, never about others.
So here is my prayer for you:
May you never lack a true Christian friend, someone to hold your hand, someone to lift your arms, someone to walk with you—until obedience becomes joy.
Ecclesiastes 4: 9 – 10
Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their labor:
10 If either of them falls down,
one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
and has no one to help them up.