You’ve no doubt experienced the impact of isolation surrounding the events of this past year. As a result, you and your family have likely figured out the adjustments you can make to ease those feelings of loneliness brought on by the inability to travel to see loved ones or to congregate within community as you once did before. For our students, this upcoming season may be especially difficult, as their “normal” community may be more spread out for the summer. And with the end of the school year, we may all be finding ourselves in a new context for seeking connection and community. So, here’s how your student can connect this summer.
1. Stay invested (wherever you are).
Due to traveling and vacation, you and your family may not be home for some time throughout the next few weeks, but—wherever you are—you are surrounded by people worth investing in.
Seek out connection with friends and family you don’t have the privilege of seeing as often as you used to or won’t have the ability to connect with once the school year starts back up. Serve at VBS or Children’s Camp if you have the valuable resource of available time. Strengthen connections, plant seeds, and allow the Lord to water them.
There’s not an off-season in the kingdom of God. Your investment matters.
2. Stay present in the unknowns.
Some of you may be busy this summer—with sports, babysitting your siblings, or maybe even taking on a new summer job! You maybe have had to say goodbye (even if only for a few weeks) to a context and a community that was more comfortable than this season you are now walking through.
Don’t allow yourself to believe that your summer “isn’t real life” or allow this time to go to waste. And while connecting with friends you won’t get to see over the summer is important, don’t allow this idea to be a copout that keeps you from bravely plugging into the new spaces you now have the privilege to inhabit.
Use this unique position and time in your life to build connections (with your teammates, your family, and your coworkers!) and rely on the Lord to use you in this new season.
3. Stay connected to the Lord.
After the intensity of the end of a pandemic-wrought school year, you’re probably exhausted and rightfully so! You need rest and relief from the busyness of that fast-paced schedule and those high levels of commitment.
And while both of these things are incredibly true, you still need Jesus just as much now in this current season as you did during the semester.
Continue to take part in rhythms and routines that lead to greater connection to the Lord. Using this time to continue to trust in and rely on the Lord can only serve to prepare you for whatever life brings next.