My husband recently commented that I need to be more careful about who I invite to visit us. I have this habit of telling everyone I interact with that she can come to our house in Costa Rica and visit if she would like to.
Perhaps it is a slightly dangerous habit, now that I think about it, but there is something behind the invitation.
What I really hope is that the women I invite to visit will read between the lines of my invitation, see past the veneer of cheery extroverted personality and hear what I am really saying.
Life on the mission field can be desperately lonely. I long for company, for authentic conversation, for deep, real life contact with sisters who understand me culturally, spiritually, and emotionally.
When I casually tell a friend I’ve made through online community that she should come visit, I really do mean it, but I’m also expressing something much deeper, much more vulnerable. What I’m really saying to her is, “I am desperate for connection. I need you to see me. I need you to know my story. I want to hear your voice and see your face and be present with you. Because I am lonely, and you are my sister.”
I don’t have the option for a coffee date or grabbing a quick lunch with a friend. There are not many girls’ nights in my life. No Bible study time, no Sunday barbeques with friends.
I love my life and daily feel privileged and humbled to live it. I’m grateful for what God is doing through us and for us here. But I still long for friendship that is real and true. I still long to put my feet on the table beside someone and exhale and know that I am known and accepted and loved. I still long to be understood.
Maybe you know that longing too?
Maybe you are extending your own quiet invitations? Hoping someone will read between the lines and see you too?
I wonder . . . if we all slowed down and really looked at the quiet invitations that are extended to us each day, maybe we would realize how many people are begging for us to take the time to notice them, to affirm them, and to be present with them. I wonder how many lonely people are reaching out to us and asking for one thing — perhaps a coffee date or a minute in the parking lot before leaving church — when what they really need is for us to just stop and see them for a moment.
I have long held myself to a standard of being a person of invitation, a person who follows the Gospel command to “go out to the street corners and invite” {Matthew 22:9}, but I am reminded by own need that there are two sides to every invitation.
The truth is, we all need each other.
Sometimes we are longing to be invited, included, wanted. We are longing to belong. And sometimes we are inviting because we are longing to be seen, to be worth saying “yes” too, to be met where we are. Either way, we are blessed when we make the time to say “yes” to one another.
Perhaps I shouldn’t invite just anyone over to visit me on this foreign soil I call home. But I won’t stop extending the invitation to be known, the invitation that expresses my longing for relationship. And I will remind myself to take notice of the invitations being extended to me, too — to notice, to read between the lines, and to make the time to say “yes.”
Because we are a people of invitation, we sisters in Christ, and we are blessed in both the extending and the accepting.
Who is quietly extending you an invitation in your life that might be saying more than you initially noticed? How can you accept that invitation?
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Related: Invite some friends over for tea and pastries and serve them with this lovely set of dessert plates.
Leave a Comment
Shelby Ketchen says
Colleen, this so resonated with me: “I don’t have the option for a coffee date or grabbing a quick lunch with a friend. There are not many girls’ nights in my life. No Bible study
time, no Sunday barbeques with friends.” My reasons are different from yours. Because I am nearly blind, I cannot drive. Most of my friends have drifted away.
Still, the longing is the same. And now I’ll be looking more for ways to extend invitations to others AND accept the ones they extend to me.
I’m so grateful to be getting to know you through your writings!
Colleen Connell Mitchell says
Wow, Shelby. I can only imagine how lonely it can feel when you are unable to get out and about and your friends don’t seem to remember you. I pray that you will find someone who sees and remembers you are, that you are included. I am will suffer the loneliness in solidarity with you.
Tara Ulrich says
Colleen, my friend, love seeing you here at InCourage. And I so get your words. When I moved almost two years ago, one of my fears was leaving behind friends and worrying that I wouldn’t make new ones. We as sisters in Christ do indeed crace community. I would so come meet you if I could!
Colleen Connell Mitchell says
Tara, I would so love that. Yes, I think the longing is natural and good, and we are happiest when we honor it in one another.
Susan says
I know that we would welcome each other onto our front porches. Enjoy glasses of wine but more than that exchange word libations! I’d like to be your friend – I spend a lot of time alone, and that is okay, but it is nice to call up a friend for a chatty supper in town or a cuppa at the coffee bar. You don’t have that privilege hidden in the mountains. I don’t even have Skype or a smartphone for a ‘vox’ but I have eyes to read you and a heart to love you. xoxo Guest post at (in)courage??? As Karrilee would say, “GAH!”
Colleen Connell Mitchell says
Thank you, friend. You have a gift for making me feel seen for sure. And I am truly grateful for it.
Melissa Haag says
I am an extreme introvert, so I get out of public interaction as much as I can, but I can so identify with the longing to connect with people. Beautiful piece as usual Colleen!
Colleen Connell Mitchell says
Thank you, Melissa. Yes, I think the longing for connection is universal. Our preferred methods may differ, but we all long to know we are worth someone’s time. Praying you find the connection you long for.
Melissa says
I, too,am an extreme introvert and struggle with offering or accepting invitations. I took a bold step last spring with invitations of both kinds. No takers. People with families are not interested in people that don’t.
Colleen Connell Mitchell says
Melissa, I am so sorry your courageous invitation did not receive the response you needed. While i do not know the pain of being the one without a family, I do know the hurt of not being heard or included, and it is heavy. I am praying that you find a place where you are welcomed, where you know you are seen.
Dorette Skinner says
Wow, Colleen. I don’t think I’ve read anything recently i could nod my head with every sentence.. Although I’m in a different season (with a seven month old for company) my husband is an introvert and would always question the reasons why many of my friends would actually come and visit (we live close to one of the biggest tourist destinations in the world). However, I’m still hoping they could read so much between the lines of the letters I’ve been sending home recently.. I’m also grateful for reminders that I’m not alone in feeling alone and should be reaching out even more to others… Thank you so much for writing this!
Beth Williams says
Colleen,
My husband and I are both introverts-although he more than I. I still long sometimes for companionship. I will call a friend and we can chat for a while and that helps. People are just so busy these days that we don’t take the time to connect and really see the person or read between the lines. Prayers for God to send everyone a couple of connections. People who can stop by and chat for a short while.
Blessings 🙂