the big arms of God

I said it on Facebook. I said it on Twitter. I'll say it here:

I continue to be awed by the way the internet allows us to expand our capacity to nurture and support our fellow humans.

Our species, I think, is not intended for solo life. We are part of community; we need community. When I am grieving or festering or bouncing off the walls, there is nothing so centering to me as the physical presence of a friend. Having the arms of someone who loves me (or even the arms of a total stranger) wrapped around me is such a deep comfort. Seeing into someone's eyes, seeing a smile, hearing a chuckle, and just being with a person can heal.

I have moved away from the town in northwestern Illinois where I grew up, as have most of my friends from that time. After earning my master's degree, I moved to the St. Louis area to teach. My husband and I stayed there for eleven years. We married, had children, had careers thrive and shrivel, joined church communities, and did all the things a young family does. When we moved to southeastern Wisconsin, the hardest thing was disconnecting from the physical presence of people we loved and who loved us. We stayed in touch through email with some. Here, we have new friends, and we have been supported and loved here as well.

Yet I am intrigued by how the internet gives us different arms for reaching out, to hold and uphold others. The hysterectomy support website I am part of, HysterSisters, is a big part of my thinking about this. HysterSisters has over 160,000 registered members, most of whom have drifted away as they have healed and resumed normal lives. Last night, however, we had a live online chat. Approximately 25 women, none of whom had ever met in person, gathered together through the internet to share experiences, fears, laughter, and joy. We laughed out loud together, in our own homes, at the silly typing errors we made. We cried with a young woman who faces cancer. As our fingers flew across our keyboards, we joined together in support and nurture. It was a powerful experience.

The internet has also helped me be with friends in their struggles. I've reconnected with someone I trusted enough to babysit my children. As she struggles with infertility and surgery, we chat online to realize that good friendship never goes away, even when friends move. Another friend is drowning under waves of family and professional stress. I have been honored to read her messages and send cyberhugs. And one friend, a HysterSister I've never met, informed us through our shared website that her husband had suddenly passed away. Through the internet, many of us have been able to reach out, to encourage, to cry with her, and to accompany her on her new journey from afar.

Although there is nothing that comes close to physically being with someone, the internet is so very powerful. Unlike a letter or email, that I read when I receive it and then cry in response to a friend's sorrows, the immediacy of the internet allows me to cry with them. And when I share my own struggles, I know that I will be lifted up by friends around the world. And that, my friends, is one of the ways God wraps His big arms around us.