From Isolated to Included
The moment that Betty saw her husband, David, she knew something was wrong. He was not the normal, upbeat person that she had known for so long. He was sitting in his chair, visibly shaken with tears streaming from his eyes. Betty gently asked what was wrong. David looked up and said, “I don’t have any friends. I’m just miserable. And I don’t know what to do about it!” Betty admitted that she felt the same way.
This hadn’t always been the case for David and Betty. Before retirement, they both worked in schools, here in Kentucky and in California. After a life of constantly being surrounded by people and friends from work and church, they found the transition into retirement harder than they expected. Suddenly they weren’t surrounded by numerous people each day. On the contrary, their number of friends seemed to dwindle dramatically. At one point, they even stopped attending church.
Betty knew they had to make a change, so one day as they were driving through Elizabethtown, they passed the still-under-construction campus for Southeast Christian Church. She said to David, “We need to go to church there.” And on August 20, 2017, they attended the inaugural service at Southeast Christian Church Elizabethtown Campus. They both loved the worship and message, but as they left, they were haunted by one prevailing thought. They realized that they didn’t know a single person’s name and no one knew theirs. And in that moment, they resolved to change that.
The next week they attended the launch for groups at the church. They met a lot of people who also wanted to connect with others. They chose a group that met on a night of the week that worked for them. That was almost four years ago, and David and Betty haven’t looked back.
David said that they have gone from knowing no one to having their own little tribe. Their home group not only has breathed life back into them, but it has given them the opportunity to serve others. Over the past few years, group members have experienced a lot of life-altering issues, including major health problems, divorce, the death of a spouse, and the pain of children making poor decisions.
Betty and David initially joined a home group because they wanted to find some friends, but they soon realized they found a group of people who were much more like family than mere friends.
David and Betty recalled how the group pulled together when one of the wives was dying from cancer. In her last days, she was able to be at home, but her husband was having a hard time with everything. So, the group members each took turns spending nights with them until she passed away. Neither Betty nor David could remember a time when they were in a position to love and serve others so much.
Betty shared that she and David initially joined a home group because they wanted to find some friends. But what they soon realized was that they found a group of people who were much more like family than mere friends. Both Betty and David affirmed that the relationships they have made are life-giving and the Bible studies they do are spiritually beneficial, but the biggest takeaway is the realization that we are much better together than we are alone.
To say that Betty and David are overjoyed that they were able to move from isolation to being forever connected with others would be an understatement. And they would encourage everyone to step up and be a part of a group!