I Prayed For Friends

During My Social Media Break. . . I took the time to start scaring with God my hearts true desires. Well let me rephrase that, I first told mg therapist then she adviced me to pray about it.

I have Social Anxiety and as I’ve gotten older, became a stay at home mom, and cut ties from family, my desire to socialize became less and less. I never really needed to leave my home for anything, so I dug myself deeper into my introverted self.

We started going to church then my daughter started school and slowly I started noticing the relationships people had. I remember this one time at church, I was in the nursing room and I started a conversation with another mom in there. They had just moved and it was her second time there. I thought “Oh cool, a newbie just like me.”

Maybe about 2 weeks later, I saw her again with another Mom and their husbands and as I walked by, I heard them talking about meeting up on a different day for something, I can’t remember. But I do remember thinking to myself, “Wow, she’s been here for a month and already made friends. I’ve been here a year and a half and have yet to make any at all.”

I was jealous. I was. I was envious. I’m that moment and I’m sure there were many others, I started to realize how my lack of friends was because of me. Because I wasn’t putting myself out there.

I had a conversation with my therapist. Her telling me that people with social anxiety naturally have a stand-off ish body language, that I need to be more vulnerable in order for others to relate to me, that I simply just had to put myself out there.

I don’t know how to put myself out there. Like honestly, I don’t. I don’t know how to spark a conversation, I don’t know how to “bud in” a discussion, I don’t know how to keep a conversation flowing when someone asks me how I’m doing.

So during my Social Media break, I prayed for friends. I did. I prayed to be able to socialize, to be able to speak, to be able to have something to do and somewhere to go.

I started praying almost 2 months ago and it just hit my now, that my prayers were answered and not in a way that I expected.

I thought that somehow friends would fall from the sky, like new people, people who knew no one and somehow would gravitate towards me.

That’s not how it happened though. Today as I was looking at our calendar for the month, we literally have something planned for every weekend for the next couple of weekends (& we’ve done stuff with people the last couple of weekends too).

God didn’t answer my prayers by bringing in new people, he answered my prayers by showing me that everything I’ve been asking for, these “new friends,” have always been around. I was just letting my social anxiety get the best of me to see it.

I kept telling myself, “Well I barely talk to them.” “Well, I hardly ever see them.” I was making up excuses and honestly saying these people aren’t good enough of friends when really it’s ME who isn’t a good enough friends. God was convincting me of how I was approaching my friendships.

It wasn’t that I was purposely being stand-off ish or that I was forcefully trying to end conversations, it was as simple as me just not knowing how to act a different way. He has shown me that it’s been me all along holding myself back.

Now, has this revelation made me gain a hundred best friends? No, because I just had it today. But, I thank God for showing me my honesty. And showing me that I am the victim of my own crime.

So although I know that I will still be socially anxious, I am trying to put myself out there a little bit more. I know that not every day or every interaction is going to be perfect, but I am trying to show my true self and not some performance I have been programmed to do since as long as I can remember.

I am thankfully today for a full calendar. And I am thankful that whenever I’ve needed Him, he always shows up. He is my friend too.