Our loving Creator knows us inside and out, and God builds on what God has already built in. And one of the things God built into us is our need for community. Right there in the second chapter of Genesis, God says, “It is not good for the person to be alone” (2:18, Complete Jewish Bible).
It’s a basic human need. We need to gather together; we need to have other people around. Some people feel that need more strongly than others. We call them extroverts. But even introverts get lonely. People need people. But right now, the spread of the novel coronavirus makes that too risky.
But we can continue being the community of women created in the image of God, even if we can’t gather in person. We can gather by phone, by mail, by email, by social media, and video teleconferencing. We can keep our community going in the sure and certain hope that this lonely time in the wilderness will not last forever.
This message is an excerpt from “God builds into us a need for community,” a Women of the ELCA devotion by Audrey Novak Riley.
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