One out of five Americans says they don't have one person they can talk to.
As we move more and more into a digital society, we can lose our ability to have healthy, thriving relationships.
For over 25 years Proverbs 31 Ministries' mission has been to intersect God's Word in the real, hard places we all struggle with. That's why we started this podcast. Every episode will feature a variety of teachings from president Lysa TerKeurst, staff members or friends of the ministry who can teach you something valuable from their vantage point. We hope that regardless of your age, background or stage of life, it's something you look forward to listening to each month!
Meredith Brock:
Hi, friends. Thanks for joining us for another episode of The Proverbs 31 Ministries Podcast where we share biblical Truth for any girl in any season. I'm your host, Meredith Brock, and I am here with my co-host, Kaley Olson.
Kaley Olson:
Thank you for the annunciation, Meredith. That was great. I could ... Meredith Brock ... It doesn't go quite as well. Anyways, Mer, we just finished a recording with our friend Dr. Heather Thompson Day, but we quickly learned just to call her Heather because she's a great friend to the ministry, but also, I mean, spoke about friendship in a way but also relationships. And I don't know if anybody listening feels this way, but sometimes whenever I'm scrolling on Instagram or every now and then looking on TikTok or Facebook, I get the illusion that everybody else has these amazing friendships and everybody has 150 best friends and they all post these nice, polished pictures of all the activities that they do all the time — every day, every night, they're going out and having fun.
And I'm just like, am I missing out? Where is this in my life? Is this even real? And Heather speaks to that. She speaks to one, kind of debunking the myth that we all have to have these best friends. But also gives a message on the urgency of relationships, not only just in friendship but woven into the very fabric of every day. And it's a great message that I know challenged me a lot.
Meredith Brock:
Yeah. I mean it's a really, really, really good one. So pertinent for where we live, the society we live in right now. And what I love about her teaching is it's not only biblically based because she references Scripture through the whole thing, but man, she's got some legitimate research to back up our actual need for relationship and that it doesn't always have to look the same. Relationships look different. So y'all are going to love this teaching.
But before we jump into her teaching, I'm excited to share a little news with you guys. We are launching, drumroll, third podcast on January 25 called the Encouragement for Today Podcast. I love this podcast because what you see in the name is exactly what you're going to get. A short devotion to listen to you once a week that's encouraging. We've taken some of our favorite devotions to give you a moment with God to start your day. Whether you're on the go or you didn't have an opportunity for your quiet time this morning, we want to meet you right where you are with the Truth of God's Word just the way you need it. And I can't wait for you guys to listen starting January 25, but that's enough from me guys. Let's go meet Dr. Heather Thompson Day.
Kaley Olson:
All right everyone, let's welcome our friend Dr. Heather Thompson Day to the podcast. Welcome.
Heather Thompson Day:
I am so honored to be here. Thanks for having me.
Meredith Brock:
We actually got to know Heather earlier in the summer of 2022 at our annual She Speaks Conference where she led a breakout session. So Heather isn't a stranger to us, but she is new to you guys, our listeners. So let's introduce her really quick. Heather is a wife, a mom, the host of a podcast called Viral Jesus. She's an author and an associate professor of communication at Andrews University. I am tired even thinking about all of those things. Heather, here's my question for you. What is your favorite thing about being a college professor?
Heather Thompson Day:
You know what? Honestly, it's the students. And I can tell you I've been teaching for 12 years. We did the math before we started recording, but I've been teaching for 12 years, and I've never had a day where even if I was in a bad mood before I walked into the class, I'm always in a better mood by the time I leave. I am crazy about this next generation and serving them as much as I can. It's just been an honor.
Kaley Olson:
That's awesome.
Meredith Brock:
That is really amazing. That's when you've found your calling where it's like what you do energizes you so much that it can shift your mood and your attitude for the day. That's awesome. What a gift you must be to your students if that's how you feel and look at them. That's amazing, Heather.
Heather Thompson Day:
I hope so.
Kaley Olson:
I agree. I agree. Heather, I was a communications student as well in school and my favorite professor, Dr. Kusha, would bring doughnuts in to class sometimes before she taught us public relations and all the things. And so I can imagine you're a doughnut-bringer as well.
Heather Thompson Day:
You know I'm a doughnut-bringer. I'm a pizza ... Sometimes at the end of the semester, I still throw a party, and I know it's not elementary school, but I'm like, let's have a party.
Kaley Olson:
But it's a lot to celebrate, spending a lot of time in the books and doing all the exams. And so let's have a pizza party after this podcast. That's not why we're here today. We're here because Meredith did mention that you're an author as well as all the things. And that's actually why you're here on the podcast today. You're going to share a message you're passionate about from your new book titled, I'll See You Tomorrow: Relationships as the Very Nature of God. And Meredith and I are so excited to hear you give your teaching. So we're going to turn the mics over to you.
Heather Thompson Day:
Contact with other human beings is so important that when you are deprived of it for long periods of time, depression sets in. So when I say, communication and relationship is the very nature of humanity and who we are, I'm not being dramatic. This is true of the design of human beings. Research shows actually that the most important contributor to your happiness, outranking how much money you make, outranking the job you have, more important than how much sex you're having. The most important contributor to your happiness is actually your relationships with other people. And there's no more convincing evidence of this, of the absence of parental affection than that compiled by Rene Spitz.
So in a South American orphanage, Spitz observed and recorded what happened to 97 children who were deprived of emotional and physical contact with others. Because there was a lack of funds, there was not enough staff to adequately care for these children, and they ranged in ages from 3 months to 3 years old. So they did have nurses who could change diapers and feed and bathe the children, but there was little time to hold and cuddle and talk to a child like a mother would. And after three months, many of these children showed signs of abnormality. Besides a loss of appetite and being unable to sleep well, many of the children started to just lay with a vacant expression in their eyes. And after five months, serious deterioration set in. They would lay whimpering with troubled and twisted faces. Oftentimes a doctor or a nurse would pick up an infant, and it would scream in terror at being held.
Twenty-seven ... I want you to understand this: 27, almost one third of the children, died the first year and not because of a lack of food or health care. They died because of a lack of touch and emotional nurture. And because of this, seven more died the second year, and eventually only 21 of the 97 survived at all. And most of those who do survive suffer serious psychological damage. So what I say to my students, what I say if I'm speaking, what I say in I'll See You Tomorrow is it's not just that, friend, you want relationship with other people. No, you actually need relationship with other people. You actually need it in order to survive. And a couple years ago, I was watching the documentary series about the Chicago Bulls featuring Michael Jordan, The Last Dance. And there's this scene in it where it's before the Bulls were really the Bulls and they finally make it to the playoffs and they're playing off against Orlando Magic. And so they're super excited to have gotten to the playoffs, but then they lose.
So the season is over, and everybody's walking off the courts. And there's this scene in the documentary where Jordan's trainer says that he turns to Michael Jordan because everybody's leaving, they're going home, you're done. And he says to Jordan, "Hey man, just let me know when I'll see you." And Jordan goes, "Oh, I'll see you tomorrow." And that's why I wrote the book I'll See You Tomorrow because Michael Jordan ... The only reason Michael Jordan is Michael Jordan is because when everybody else went home, he always went back to the gym. He didn't see life as a finite game. He saw it as an infinite season where you can always keep coming back, and in I'll See You Tomorrow, what I'm hoping to do is teach people how to say, "I'll see you tomorrow." In a world where everyone is toxic, everybody I don't like, everybody who disagrees with me, everybody who says something the wrong way, you're toxic now; everyone's a narcissist. It's become incredibly easy to block and ghost and mute. And I want to remind people how to remain in committed relationship.
And so I want to show you not just, I hope in the beginning I talked to you a little bit about why this is true from a sociological perspective, even an evolutionary perspective. This is true where both evolutionary biology and Christianity agree, human beings were created to exist in relationship. But I want to show you also from a biblical perspective how we can understand this a little bit deeper because Genesis 2:7 reads, "Then the Lᴏʀᴅ God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being" (NIV). [In] Genesis 2:8, "Now the Lᴏʀᴅ God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed" (NIV).
So we see in Genesis 2:7 and Genesis 2:8, this is God's ideal world before sin. God's ideal world before sin is where God dwells with man. And then we know in Genesis 2 and in Genesis 3, He makes Eve and man now dwells with each other. So God's ideal vision for man is relationship with God and relationship to each other. None of this is surprising because Genesis 1:27 says that God made human beings in God's own image. I'm a communication professor, and we often say things; we say things like, “I'm made in the image of God.” What does that mean? We say words and we say Christian phrases and nobody stops to say, “What does that mean?” What does that look like? What does it mean to be made in the image of God? I believe it's not just to be made with the ability to think or to have good character or to be intentional but also to live relationally. And here's why I think that. Because God Himself only exists in the Trinity.
So as much as God is trying to describe the very nature of God to human beings, and however much of this we can even understand with our tiny brains, God says there's this relationship that exists between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And so what if God is not just supposed to be a being that we have a relationship with? What if God, the very nature of God, is relationship itself? And what if every time we partake in genuine, authentic, loving relationship, we partake in the very act of the nature of God? What if we are most fully in God's image when we reenact what we see in Genesis 2, when we are with God and when we are with each other and God dwells?
I want to show you a few more verses how the entire arc of scripture is God trying to get back to the ideal that we see in the garden in Genesis 2. So in Genesis 2:7-8, God is with us and we are with each other and with God. So that's the ideal. Genesis 3, Adam and Eve sin. And there's a lot, honestly, that goes on. I do an entire sermon series just on Genesis 3 because, essentially, we see that sin brings division of relationship. The first thing that we see is how the image of God is immediately broken in man, because Adam and Eve try to hide from God. So they sever this relationship between them and God. And then the next thing that happens in Genesis 3:12 is Adam says to God, "It was the woman you gave me" (NLT). There's this severing in this relationship with each other. As soon as we experience sin ... what we immediately see of sin is that Adam is willing to sacrifice Eve if it would save himself.
And you'll notice, by the way, I think this is really fascinating because one of the things that happens at the cross is, they say to Jesus; they say, the people in the crowd are yelling, He's on the cross. And they say, "Aren't you the guy that was doing miracles? Aren't you the miracle-worker? If you are who you say you are, Jesus, get down." But because He was who He said He was, He would never get down because Jesus never sacrificed others to save self. Jesus always sacrificed self to save others. It's a reunification of what we see Adam do in Genesis 3. Jesus always chooses relationship because that's the very image of God.
In the very next chapter of scripture, Exodus 25:8, we see a part of God's plan on how we are supposed to navigate living in now this broken, fallen, sinful world. Exodus 25:8: "Then have them make" ... This is God talking to Moses; He says, "Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them" (NIV). A relational God, we see in Exodus 25:8 whose goal is to get back in some way to Genesis 2, where God was with man and we were with each other. And God exists in the Trinity, which means in relationship, and God dwells relationally with man as we dwell with each other. We see it again in Isaiah.
Isaiah prophesies to the children of Israel in Isaiah 7:14. And it says this, "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign" (NIV). What's the sign? The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and will call Him what? Immanuel. Immanuel literally means God with us. God's goal has always been to just be in relationship with His people as His people are in relationship with each other. This is the entirety of the Ten Commandments. The first four commandments: honor God, keep the Sabbath. All it is: love God, love God, love God, love God. The last six commandments: don't kill, don't commit adultery, or love each other, love each other, love each other, love each other. God's goal has always been for us to be in relationship with God and in relationship with each other. It's the entire arc of scripture ... Is for God to be in relationship with His people. And we are made in the image of God. We are made, we are supposed to be in this relational image.
And that is why I wrote I'll See You Tomorrow because we're losing our ability to be not just in relationship with God but in healthy relationship with each other. And I believe the world is losing the very image of God. I'm very sensitive about this because people will say, atheists will say, "Well, where's God? I don't see God." That's not an indictment on God. God has always chosen to be invisible because God chooses to be seen in His people. If people are saying where is God, it means because His image bearers have ceased to reveal His image. In the gospels, Immanuel, God with us, Immanuel is born through the incarnation of Jesus Christ. So again, what we see through the personhood of Jesus is God dwells with man as man dwells with God. Relationship, relationship, relationship. That's the arc.
And lastly, in Revelation 21:3, the very last book of the Bible where we see this restoration, we get to see God's ultimate vision for humanity restored. Revelation 21:3, it says this, "And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people" (NIV). We are back to Genesis 2. And He will dwell with them. (Exodus 25:8) We are in relationship. And they will be His people and God Himself will be with them and be their God.
Listen, I am very used to trying to explain Scripture extremely simply, so I can say it to an 18-year-old kid who says to me, "Heather, I just don't know anymore." One of my students. And I say, "Listen, if I was to explain the Bible or the good news of the gospel to anyone, it would simply be that God desires to be in a relationship with humanity. God wants a relationship with you." That's it. You don't have to complicate it. If we see anything in Scripture, it's not that human beings like figure this whole thing out and navigate the relationship perfectly. They never do. But God wants to be in a relationship with you, and He wants us to be His image bearers, to be in relationship with each other. It's how we restore the image of God.
But we are living in a world today, unfortunately, where one out of five Americans says they don't have one person that they can talk to. One out of five of us says, “I don't have a single person that I can talk to.” A Brigham Young University study says loneliness has the same impact. And this is what I'm trying to explain. I'm not being dramatic. This is affecting us physically. Loneliness has the same impact on your mortality as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, making it even more dangerous than obesity. Loneliness is quite literally killing us, and I serve Generation Z. I serve young adults and I serve women. Generation Z was rated the loneliest generation in history. They scored 10 points lonelier than even senior citizens. I am telling you, this is a generation that is deeply in need of relational mentorship.
In a Gallup study from 1990, it was found that 26% of Americans said that when they go through a difficult time, their friend was the first person they turned to. OK, 1990, 26% of Americans say, when I'm going through a divorce, when I'm going through grief, when I'm battling an illness, when I'm going through a transition, I turn to my friends. Today that number has dropped by 10%. Only 16% of Americans say, when I'm going through my divorce, when I'm going through grief, when I have a diagnosis, when I'm losing my job, I tell my own friends. And it's not because we're in so thick with our family. Only 9% of Americans say in a difficult time, they turn to a family member. So if we aren't turning to a friend and we aren't turning to our families, who are we turning to?
Well, 81% of Americans say that when making a big life decision, they rely on their own research. I Google it. How to survive divorce? How to survive grief? How do I get through this move? How do I navigate losing a job? I Google it. For 81% of Americans, Google is our most trusted ally, and I am just super passionate about helping people realize that self-reliance is a myth. You were never created to be self-reliant from the very beginning, from Genesis 2. You were created to be in the image of God. You were created to exist in this relational image. And every time we enact in healthy relationship, we enact in the image of God itself.
The health survey conducted by Cigna found a huge difference in average loneliness scores between those who had had daily, meaningful, in-person encounters and those who didn't. How do we fight and combat loneliness? Well, we start having actual conversations with people, not a tweet, not liking an Instagram post. On our way home, we stop at someone's house instead of sending a text. And I understand, everybody says, "Well, I'm just so tired. It's so much easier to go home and just watch Netflix." But I'm telling you, the very thing that is making you tired is your lack of relationship because that's what's hurting us because we're wired to be in relationship. And everybody has had that experience where you just think, Man, I don't know how I'm going to make it through my life anymore. And you spend one night with your family or one night with your friends and you're like, oh my goodness, I'm so energized. This is why.
We have to experience daily, meaningful, in-person interactions. And it's no wonder when Jesus first stood in the temple in Matthew 15:8-10, He said, "These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men" (NKJV). God says, “I'm a relational God, and My vision is to dwell with My people and My people to dwell with each other. I am Immanuel, God with us.” So you can sing your songs and pray your prayers, but without enacting the very image of God, it doesn't mean anything.
I want to close just by ... People who signed up for I'll See You Tomorrow to get some of the first copies, I sent them a little thank-you note, and this is what I wrote on the note. And so I just want to share it with everybody. Ephesians 4 because really, this is honestly my prayer for our entire generation right now. It's Paul and he says, Ephesians 4:1-4, it says, "I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received" (NIV). What does it look like to live a life worthy of the call to be a Christian? Paul says it looks like living with all humility, and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love. Some of us know what that feels like to have to bear with someone in love making every effort. Paul says, "To keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace" (Ephesians 4:3, NIV). How do we start saying to people, “I'll see you tomorrow”? “I'm committed to this idea of relationship; I'm committed to living in the image of a relational God. I'll see you tomorrow.”
Kaley Olson:
Wow, Heather, that was a great teaching. And honestly, I could hear the urgency in your tone that you're conveying and how passionate you are about this message because it is a message of urgency. But I think, I mean for me, I'm listening to this and I'm like, wow, I understand how necessary this is, but whoa, this feels like a big undertaking. Because in my mind, what's going through is, well, I look online and I look at people's highlight reels, and it looks like everybody's got 15 or 30 or 100 really great friends, and all they do is post about how awesome their life is. When I know that that's a myth. But I think that when I listen to this, I think, OK, well, how many close friends do I need to have? Heather, how many close friends do you have? I think that's a question that people might be wondering as they're listening to this. Well, how many do I need? Is one enough, or how many do you have? Just let's start there. I would love to know.
Heather Thompson Day:
Yeah, so I have two really good best friends, and then several good friends and a really connected family. But something I think is really interesting in a lot of the research that I did for I'll See You Tomorrow is that it's not necessarily that we need best friendships. It's that we have to start prioritizing relationship in general. So people, and we already knew this, but if you go to church, you are healthier and happier. Why? It's called the strength of weak ties by the way, in communication, we call it the strength of weak ties. All it means is there is value in weak-tie relationships. There is value in me going to the same ... I'm actually talking about me, going to the same breakfast diner and knowing that Shirley is going to know my order before I even sit down.
Do I talk to Shirley on the phone? No. But every time I go into the diner, Shirley says, "Heather, hi, I'm so glad to see you. How are you? Do you want the usual?" That relationship matters. So I want to urge people to not get stuck on thinking, Oh, I have to make a best friend. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying, how do we start valuing relationship everywhere that we see it? There's strength in weak ties too.
Meredith Brock:
That's really, really good because I think so many times we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to be like, well, if I can't find that one friend who really gets me, and we have all this history together, and then I can't be fully transparent, fully myself. We're not in the same season of life. There are all these different reasons why you can't get this friend, this idealistic friend, that you've been making. But, Heather, I think that really sets us free to realize you don't necessarily need one best friend as much as you need to weave relationship into your everyday life.
Heather Thompson Day:
Yes.
Kaley Olson:
Yeah, that's great. Well, and I feel like too, that speaks to ... growing up, we watched sitcom, the '90s sitcoms where everybody had their person. Like Full House, there was DJ and, oh, what's her name?
Heather Thompson Day:
Becky?
Meredith Brock:
No, DJ? I can't remember.
Kaley Olson:
Oh no. Does anybody ...
Meredith Brock:
Kimmy.
Kaley Olson:
Kimmy.
Heather Thompson Day:
Kimmy.
Kaley Olson:
DJ and Kimmy. And Lizzie McGuire and her friend, and then Mary Kate, everybody had their friend. I think it kind of bakes in this lie that we have to have this one person to live life and they have to be our age, but they don't. Some of mine, and Jared, my husband's, closest friends here in Charlotte are people who we call are Charlotte parents, and they're in their 60s because we live far away from our parents, and we've known them for 10 years now. And we go have dinner with them, and we stay the night with them. And we are in relationship with them. And it doesn't matter that they're a little bit older than we are, but they know us and we let them in. And I think that it's important to what you alluded to about not just kind of going through life pretending like everything is OK but being able to have people who you can be honest with because that is relationship whenever you're open and honest and let people in instead of pretending like everything is OK.
Heather Thompson Day:
I want to just add to that, just that myth of the best friend. There's also a cultural, I think, romantic myth that I am only a whole person if I am married. And one of the things that I talk about in this book is, listen, your body processes the hormones that we experience when we have love in our lives the exact same way; whether it's romantic relationships or familial relationship or friendship relationship, your body processes love the same way. So you can experience a wholly loved life single. And I think that's also a message that a lot of women especially need to understand and know. It's about valuing relationship and not just looking for that one friend-soulmate or even partner-soulmate. There's relationship and a whole loving life available for you right here.
Kaley Olson:
That's great.
Meredith Brock:
That's really good because it really ... I think sometimes the spouse, we idealize the spouse relationship, we idealize like the best-friend relationship, and it never lives up to what we really want it to be because we're sinful humans. And I love, Heather, where you landed, and this is where my mind kept coming back to as you were teaching, it’s that relationships are essential. It is our blueprint. And all the studies that you reference, we cannot live a life fully outside of relationship. If we do, we die. Whether it's physically or emotionally, we die. But where we get tripped up is that, darn it, those relationships are hard. Because we're going to get done with this podcast and somebody is going to bump ... Lysa TerKeurst always says, "Somebody's going to bump into my happy." And that is going to aggravate me. And so my sinful nature wants to say, "I'm done with you. You're out. This is too hard." And I love that you landed on that verse in Ephesians, "Bear with one another in love." It is worth it. It is worth it.
Heather Thompson Day:
And I do want to add because I think just because words mean things and I think part of the problem is the language we keep using to describe anything that somebody does that makes you mad, we now say is toxic. It's a very popular buzzword, and I challenge people to say ... toxic ... I mean, words mean things. So toxic means every single time I'm engaging in this relationship, I'm ingesting poison. Every time I drink from this well, it is making me sicker. Absolutely. That's a relationship you should not be near. It's hurting you, but is it every time? Is it a pattern? I always tell people, "Are you talking about a singular incident where somebody did something you didn't like one time and it bothered you? Or is it a pattern?" Patterns should be broken? Yes. Incidents can be forgiven, and we have to be honest with ourselves about which one it is because here's the truth: The only thing you will have in common with every single person around you is that neither of you will be perfect. And the only reason I have friends is because they have forgiven me when I was the jealous friend or when I didn't call when I said I would or when I forgot an important anniversary. The only reason I still have friends today, those people that I mentioned, is because I've been forgiven for my imperfections. And so how do we offer to people the same grace that absolutely we all want?
Meredith Brock:
That's really good. Heather, thank you. I can't say thank you enough for coming on the show today. I feel like I'm just energized by this conversation and reminded of things that I need in my own life, but also I'm sitting here thinking about my kids; they're the next generation and teaching them to put their phone down.
Heather Thompson Day:
Yeah.
Meredith Brock:
Go play with the little boy next door. Yeah, I know he gets on your nerves sometimes, buddy, but you know what? Go hang out with him. And how we can foster in our children, and what you're doing, Heather, with these college students: fostering this in their hearts to show that relationship connection is worth it, even if it's hard. And you know what? Speaking of connecting, Heather, I know our listeners are going to want to connect with you. Can you tell us what's the very best way for them to find you? To get to know you better?
Heather Thompson Day:
Yeah, you can just go to my website: heatherthompsonday.com.
Meredith Brock:
OK, awesome. And just as a reminder, everybody, Heather does have this incredible book. If this is something, if this has sparked something in your heart and you want to learn more about it, make sure you go pick up a copy of I'll See You Tomorrow using the link in our show notes.
Kaley Olson:
And don't forget about our big announcement at the top of the show. Our Encouragement for Today Podcast launches January 25, and we can't wait for you to listen to a short devotion released once a week every week. It'll be the perfect addition to your podcast routine, in addition to The Proverbs 31 Ministries Podcast and Therapy & Theology available on all listening platforms. That's all for today, friends, at Proverbs 31 Ministries. We believe when you know the Truth and live the Truth, it changes everything.