Showing up for one another

Please note: This article mentions pregnancy loss.

This month, I want to honour the quiet strength of women who keep showing up. The women who pray, who persevere, who nurture faith in hidden places. The women who carry others when life gets heavy.

Because I’ve learned that stepping into God’s purposes doesn’t spare us from heartache. Sometimes, it’s in the painful places that the deepest spiritual formation happens. And I’m learning that God forms us not only in the secret place, but in the shared one – through relationships, through community.

It’s in the painful places that the deepest spiritual formation happens

My own heart feels heavy right now. I’m wrestling with hope deferred as I face some deeply painful areas of unanswered prayer. And I’m coming to terms with the reality that this journey of faith and formation is often hard. It’s difficult to keep walking in hope when you’re carrying disappointment and grief. It’s hard to trust God when it feels like your prayers aren’t being answered in the ways you long for.

And yet…here we are.

One thing I promise is that I’ll always be real with you, not just about the joys of following Jesus, but the aches we face in this life too. My prayer is that somewhere in the raw truth of what we carry, we’ll discover a hope that’s deeper than our circumstances.

Walking through personal pain

This year did not begin the way I imagined it would. On 9 January, I went into Chelsea and Westminster Hospital’s Early Pregnancy Unit (EPU) for an emergency scan. I was ten weeks pregnant and facing complications. After two previous missed miscarriages, my nerves were sky high, though I still clung to the smallest shred of hope for a miracle.

Sadly, the scan revealed no such miracle. Another missed miscarriage. Another loss.

I went home, numb and devastated, unsure how to carry this grief again.

As I walked through the door, one of my closest friends called. She listened as I cried, piecing together broken sentences through my grief. “Not again. I don’t want to walk through this again.”

She didn’t try to fix it. She simply listened. She prayed, reminded me that God is still faithful, and spoke hope over my future – words only the kind of friend who has truly walked with you can speak.

After I hung up, I called my mum. We wept together in silence and prayed. She reminded me that the God we serve is a God of redemption. My husband, Dan, and I muddled our way through that weekend in a daze.

I couldn’t bring myself to go to church on Sunday, but I watched online and asked a friend to come over and pray. She showed up without hesitation, held me, prayed with me and spoke life over me and my womb. Her prayers covered me in a peace from the Holy Spirit that carried me into surgery with trust. 

The day after my surgery, another friend dropped off a meal, groceries and little comforts. She knows this kind of pain well because she’s walked it too. She understood that grief makes even simple things feel insurmountable. I didn’t have to ask. She simply said: “Can I please cook you a meal and drop it off this week?”

I was so relieved I didn’t have to ask. 

I could go on and on about the women around me who simply showed up. Meals. Prayers. Texts. Calls. Visits. Prophetic words – women who held my arms up in prayer when I felt too weak to stand.

The friends we all need

Reflecting on this has made me wonder: who are the women around you who breathe life into you? Who answer the phone when you’re desperate? Who pray the bold prayers your lips can’t quite speak yet? Who remind you who God is, and who you are, when life isn’t looking like you hoped?

Because we need others around us. We need community – the kind that celebrates with us in joy and grieves with us in disappointment. The kind that shows up.

Community isn’t just a nice add-on to the Christian life; it’s part of our formation

Paul writes: “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). I’m realising more than ever that community isn’t just a nice add-on to the Christian life; it’s part of our formation.

We often talk about spiritual disciplines like prayer, fasting, scripture, silence and solitude, and they are essential. But I’m learning that building authentic, Christ-shaped community is a discipline too. Jesus modelled this so beautifully.

Real community is about being interruptible. It’s answering the call, noticing needs, praying consistently, carrying one another – not only when life is thriving, but when it’s unravelling. And perhaps this is one of the clearest ways we reflect the heart of God.

A simple community practice

Let me encourage you to do what I’ve been trying to live out myself: find one or two people in your church or faith community and intentionally go deeper with them. Set a regular rhythm to meet and pray – weekly is ideal, but even once a month is a beautiful start. Then protect it. Prioritise it.

Because this is how the kingdom comes close – not always in the big, dazzling moments, but in the steady, sacred ones. In a hand held. A prayer whispered. A meal left on the doorstep.

So this month, and in all the months to come, may we be the kind of women who show up for each other. Not with perfect words, but with faithful presence.

Because even in grief, God is near. Often, He comes to us through the familiar face of a friend, reminding us that we are not alone – and that we are fully loved. And as we keep walking, one step at a time, hope begins to rise again.