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So I listened to a podcast recently about loneliness, about this crisis we have in our country.

Pastor bin talked about this a little bit last week,

and there was so much data and research for decades showing us

that our friendship networks are shrinking.

Just a few of the stats, and that's it, I'm not doing the full stat thing,

Pesterbins better at it, a few of the stats that stood out to me that they highlighted that we're losing close friendships faster than we make new one.

That over the last decades you look at the average person's life and they're losing their friends faster

than they're creating new close friendships. A quarter of people in some of these

studies said that they have no one to confide in. So a significant portion of this room would say I don't have a

single person in my life that I can confide the deepest parts of me in. And then

depending on your age, a quarter of people say they experience severe loneliness.

And another quarter says they experience it, but a little less often and a little more mildly.

So looking at this room, that's imagining

that half of this room, that's split in half,

you would say, I experience loneliness.

Some of you, it's the heaviest part of your life.

And for others of you, it might not be constant, but you have experience. the heaviest

the heaviest part of your life. And as it increases, it's costing us.

...