What The Well Taught Me About Community, Healing, and God’s Timing

Even Jesus allowed others to support him. 

Even though he was the Son of God, Jesus didn’t do things alone. He chose community - especially when things were hard. In the garden, he asked his closest friends to stay with him, pray with him, and be near ( Matthew 26:38 ). He modeled what it looks like to reach out instead of isolate. 

The Well launched this week. A week filled with the most raw emotions and sheer exhaustion. It didn’t unfold the way I envisioned, but it was exactly what God had planned. That’s the difference and it wasn’t easy to see through the tears and disappointment of the week. It was a space of sacred connection, and this morning, I had the honor of being in community with a dear friend for three hours.

Isolation is my default. Growing up in a highly dysfunctional family with drug addicted and alcoholic parents didn’t make for the safest environment. I learned survival at an early age. I knew I couldn’t depend on anyone. I knew depending on someone often meant there were strings attached or pain to follow. So I learned to choose the safest path I knew. I chose the lonely route. I chose what I knew wouldn’t hurt me… or so I thought.

Moving to Delaware meant I left behind my old life. I left behind familiar faces and safe spaces. I left behind everything that had defined me up to that point. I chose isolation because it felt safer than vulnerability. I didn’t open up easy. I didn’t let people in. I kept my guard up and people at a distance. Trust didn’t come easy and anxiety ran high. Fear of asking for a favor or help inflicted a deep routed trauma responses in my body that prevented me from being able to relax after the fact. I grew up never knowing LOVE from my parents without it being tied to a conditional factor. I grew up not being able to rely on my parents without fear of being verbally, physically or emotionally abused. I grew up unsafe. So naturally, isolation was the safest place I could put myself. But that safety was a lie.

Maybe that’s why I like hiking and being alone in the forrest. Maybe that’s why my heart desired a sacred space of community for women. Maybe thats why it’s easier to pour into others and provide them with a safe space because I never knew safety until I was in my late 30’s. I found safety in honoring who I was - not who or what my parents said I was. I found safety in grounding myself in faith and biblical truth. I found safety walking away from old patterns and people who hurt me, in finding my voice and surrendering the control I thought I had.

I found safety sitting on the park bench with my dear friend after our walk. It was her gentle reminder that as much as The Well was created for others - maybe - it was really about God creating space for me to breathe and heal too. Maybe, The Well was just as much for me as it was for her. That TOGETHER we could walk in our healing journeys side by side. That alone changed my entire outlook and I have never been more grateful for what I didn’t know I needed, but God did.